Physicists excited by discovery of new form of matter, excitonium

Excitonium has a team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign… well… excited! Professor of Physics Peter Abbamonte and graduate students Anshul Kogar and Mindy Rak, with input from colleagues at Illinois, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Amsterdam, have proven the existence of this enigmatic new form of matter, which has perplexed scientists since it was first theorized almost 50 years ago.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-12-physicists-discovery-excitonium.html#jCp

The team studied non-doped crystals of the oft-analyzed transition metal dichalcogenide titanium diselenide (1T-TiSe2) and reproduced their surprising results five times on different cleaved crystals. University of Amsterdam Professor of Physics Jasper van Wezel provided crucial theoretical interpretation of the experimental results.
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crystals? dichalcogenide titanium diselenide ?? Professor van Wezel???

rushes off to check the date

Peak Warming Man said:

The team studied non-doped crystals of the oft-analyzed transition metal dichalcogenide titanium diselenide (1T-TiSe2) and reproduced their surprising results five times on different cleaved crystals. University of Amsterdam Professor of Physics Jasper van Wezel provided crucial theoretical interpretation of the experimental results.
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crystals? dichalcogenide titanium diselenide ?? Professor van Wezel???

rushes off to check the date

Yeah, all the names are pretty sus.

Obvious fake science.

Peak Warming Man said:

The team studied non-doped crystals of the oft-analyzed transition metal dichalcogenide titanium diselenide (1T-TiSe2) and reproduced their surprising results five times on different cleaved crystals. University of Amsterdam Professor of Physics Jasper van Wezel provided crucial theoretical interpretation of the experimental results.
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crystals? dichalcogenide titanium diselenide ?? Professor van Wezel???

rushes off to check the date

Yeah, looks sus so check wikipedia. It checks out. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_metal_dichalcogenide_monolayers

“Transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) monolayers are atomically thin semiconductors of the type MX2, with M a transition metal atom (Mo, W, etc.) and X a chalcogen atom (S, Se, or Te). One layer of M atoms is sandwiched between two layers of X atoms. They are part of the large and new family of the so-called 2D materials, name used to emphasize their extraordinary thinness. For example a MoS2 monolayer is only 6.5 Å thick. The key feature of these materials is the interaction of large atoms in the 2D structure as compared with first-row transition metal dichalcogenides, e.g., WTe2 exhibits anomalous giant magnetoresistance and superconductivity.”

“The discovery of graphene shows how new physical properties emerge when a bulk crystal of macroscopic dimensions is thinned down to one atomic layer. Like graphite, TMD bulk crystals are formed of monolayers bound to each other by Van-der-Waals attraction.”