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Wigner crystals in flat band 2D electron systems

Nature Reviews Physics volume 4, pages 212–213 (2022)Cite this article

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Wigner crystals — ordered arrays of electrons — have been recently found in various 2D materials, but the first studies of these crystals in 2D electron systems (2DESs) date back from the 1980s. Mansour Shayegan gives a brief history of Wigner crystals and highlights future prospects.

Wigner crystals occur if the Coulomb energy (EC) dominates the kinetic energy of electrons, causing the electrons to arrange themselves into a periodic lattice to minimize EC. Realizing Wigner crystals in experiments is a challenge because of competing energies, including disorder, which disturb the periodic arrangement of electrons and, if sufficiently strong, eventually destroy the Wigner crystal phase. Despite this difficulty, in the past year, there have been multiple reports of Wigner crystals in atomic-layer thin 2D materials1,2,3.

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Fig. 1: Bilayer system used for probing a Wigner crystal using composite fermions.

References

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  1. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Mansour Shayegan

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  1. Mansour Shayegan
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Correspondence to Mansour Shayegan.

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Shayegan, M. Wigner crystals in flat band 2D electron systems. Nat Rev Phys 4, 212–213 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00444-4

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