Why are crystals so beautiful? Probably because they are composed of neatly arranged atoms.
Just like atoms, electrons can arrange themselves to form a crystal. Given the right conditions, electrons organize themselves into a tidy honeycomb pattern. The pattern form is called a Wigner crystal - named after the Hungarian theorist who first imagined them almost 90 years ago.
Physicists from the University of California captured an image of the Wigner crystal for the first time with the use of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). By using the same graphene-based method, STM studies can go beyond other interesting physical phenomena.
Image: H. Li et al./Nature
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