Overview
- An international team from IBM Research and universities in Manchester, Oxford, Zurich, Lausanne and Regensburg reports the result in Science on March 5, 2026.
- The molecule (C13Cl2) was assembled atom by atom on a gold substrate under ultrahigh vacuum and imaged with scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopy.
- Its electronic structure rotates by 90 degrees each circuit, so an electron’s wave function returns to its starting phase only after four loops, a first-of-its-kind topology.
- IBM’s quantum computer generated simulations that matched the microscope images and revealed helical orbitals consistent with the half‑Möbius state, with calculations extended to as many as 32 electrons.
- Probe-tip voltage pulses reversibly switched the twist between left-handed, right-handed and untwisted states, and researchers caution the molecule is unstable outside these specialized conditions and potential applications are uncertain.