Liu developed the material, hafnium pentatelluride, at the UC Irvine lab and is the first author of the paper. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)Professor Luis Jauregui, director of the Quantum Materials and Devices Lab at UC Irvine, is pictured inside the lab in Irvine on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. The material was developed at UC Irvine by Jinyu Liu, a postdoctoral researcher in Jauregui’s lab and the first author of the paper. Liu developed the material, hafnium pentatelluride, at the UC Irvine lab and is the first author of the paper. Quantum matter isn’t the same as the non-quantum matter you may or may not have studied in high school chemistry.