Physicists Create a Bizarre ‘Wigner Crystal’ Made Purely of Electrons

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In 1934, Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, theorized a strange kind of matter — a crystal made from electrons. The idea was simple; proving it wasn’t. Physicists tried many tricks over eight decades to nudge electrons into forming these so-called Wigner crystals, with limited success. In June, however, two independent groups of physicists reported in Nature the most direct experimental observations of Wigner crystals yet.


“Wigner crystallization is such an old idea,” said Brian Skinner, a physicist at Ohio State University who was not involved with the work. “To see it so cleanly was really nice.”

Physicists Create a Bizarre ‘Wigner Crystal’ Made Purely of Electrons | Quanta Magazine

The unambiguous discovery of a Wigner crystal relied on a novel technique for probing the insides of complex materials.

www.quantamagazine.org