The intermetallic compound was first reported by Liu and Peretti in 1951, who gave its homogeneity range, structure type, and lattice constant.

[7] In 2018, a research team at Delft University of Technology claimed that indium antimonide nanowires showed potential application in creating Majorana zero mode quasiparticles for use in quantum computing; Microsoft opened a laboratory at the university to further this research, however Delft later retracted the paper.

[10] InSb is a narrow direct band gap semiconductor with an energy band gap of 0.17 eV at 300 K and 0.23 eV at 80 K.[10] Undoped InSb possesses the largest ambient-temperature electron mobility of 78000 cm2/(V⋅s),[11] electron drift velocity, and ballistic length (up to 0.7 μm at 300 K)[10] of any known semiconductor, except for carbon nanotubes.

Indium antimonide photodiode detectors are photovoltaic, generating electric current when subjected to infrared radiation.

[12] Like all narrow bandgap materials InSb detectors require periodic recalibrations, increasing the complexity of the imaging system.

This added complexity is worthwhile where extreme sensitivity is required, e.g. in long-range military thermal imaging systems.