A team of physicists from Hamburg University has made a breakthrough in the field of quantum physics by observing a rare state of matter that was predicted by Japanese theorists more than half a century ago.

The state, known as the Machida-Shibata state, involves the pairing of electrons in an artificial atom on the surface of a superconductor. The discovery, published in the journal Nature, could have implications for the development of nanostructured electronic devices and quantum computers.