"Unveiling the Enigmatic Wigner Crystal: A Breakthrough in Quantum Physics"

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Source: ScienceAlert
"Unveiling the Enigmatic Wigner Crystal: A Breakthrough in Quantum Physics"
Photo: ScienceAlert
TL;DR Summary

Physicists have finally captured direct observational evidence of the Wigner crystal, a peculiar kind of matter proposed by Eugene Wigner 90 years ago, in which free electrons are forced together in a crystalline lattice due to their mutual repulsion. Using high-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy, a team of physicists from Princeton University observed the Wigner crystal in pristine graphene at extremely low temperatures and low densities, confirming its properties and revealing its novel quantum nature, including strong zero-point motion. This groundbreaking discovery provides the first direct images of the Wigner crystal and contradicts previous theories about its stability and density range.

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