Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Electron crystals come under the microscope

In 2D materials, electrons at low densities can freeze into well-defined positions and form exotic structures called Wigner crystals. A non-invasive technique has been developed to image these crystals directly.
  1. Carmen Rubio-Verdú

    1. Carmen Rubio-Verdú is in the Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York 10027, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

In 1934, the physicist Eugene Wigner predicted that electrons could form crystals1. Evidence of such Wigner crystals has been seen in liquid helium-42,3, in 2D electron gases under strong magnetic fields4,5 and in 2D semiconductors6–8. However, these crystals have been difficult to observe directly because they are fragile and can be altered by any small perturbation. Writing in Nature, Li et al.9 report the direct imaging of Wigner crystals in a 2D material.

Access options

Nature 597, 640-641 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02573-9

References

  1. Wigner, E. Phys. Rev. 46, 1002–1011 (1934).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Williams, R., Crandall, R. S. & Willis, A. H. Phys. Rev. Lett. 26, 7–9 (1971).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Grimes, C. C. & Adams, G. Phys. Rev. Lett. 42, 795–798 (1979).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Andrei, E. Y., Deville, G., Glattli, D. C. & Williams, F. I. B. Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 2765–2768 (1988).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Jiang, H. W. et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 633–636 (1990).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Zhou, Y. et al. Nature 595, 48–52 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Smoleński, T. et al. Nature 595, 53–57 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Regan, E. C. et al. Nature 579, 359–363 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Li, H. et al. Nature 597, 650–654 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links