For the first time, scientists have captured a mysterious crystal that had been expected for more than 90 years

In the scientific world there are many unanswered questions, hypotheses to be tested and theories to be proven, which have been predicted by scientists throughout human history to explain the universe that surrounds us.

Although we are now surrounded by innovative technologies and great advances in science, we still have much to discover.

In this note you will learn about a discovery that will revolutionize the world of physics. It is a mysterious crystal that was hypothesized and finally revealed by a group of scientists more than 90 years ago.

This was an astonishing crystal discovery recently published in the scientific journal Nature by a group of American and Japanese experts, most of them from Princeton University. They claim to have observed for the first time the mysterious Wegener crystal, the solid state of subatomic electrons.

Electrons normally behave in orbit around their atomic nucleus, due to the attractive force generated by the protons that compose them. In the absence of protons, electrons tend to move as far apart as possible.

In 1934, mathematician and physicist Eugene Wigner devised a theory that suggested that electrons on a uniform, inert, and neutral background could cease to repel each other and form a rigid, very compact, regular crystalline lattice, without a central atomic nucleus, underneath very high temperature conditions. low densities and temperatures.

It took years to verify this theory, and while there have been studies that have provided evidence for the existence of Wigner crystals, a classical or quantum Wigner crystal that formed spontaneously determines its symmetry or fusion of this structure, not directly visualized until Today. And this has really been proven.

“By visualizing this crystal we can not only observe its formation and confirm many of its properties, but we can also study it in ways that were not possible in the past.said Yazdani, a physicist at Princeton University, in a launch from the same university.

In this study, the scientists used high-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy measurements to directly image a Wigner electron crystal, which was excited at low temperatures by a perpendicular magnetic field in defect-free graphene sheets.

“Using our microscope, we can confirm that the samples do not contain atomic defects in the atomic lattice of graphene or foreign atoms on their surfaces in areas containing hundreds of thousands of atoms.“said physicist Yazdani.

The paper mentions that the highest magnetic field intensity was 13.95 Tesla and the lowest temperature reached was 210 mK, to investigate the structural properties as a function of electron density, magnetic field and temperature.

Experts found that the electrons spontaneously organized themselves to form a Wigner crystal, and although they tried to repel each other, due to their low density, they could not move away from each other, which helped form the organized , compact and clear triangular network. .

“They want to move away from each other, but in the meantime the electrons cannot be separated indefinitely due to their finite density. The result is that they form a regular, coherent lattice structure, with each localized electron occupying a certain amount of space.“said Minhao Hu, co-author of the article.

Scientists could also observe that increasing density or temperature causes the crystal lattice of electrons to merge into an isotropic liquid phase.

What impressed the scientists was that the formed electron crystal was stable for longer than estimated, when the density changed to a fairly large extent, contrary to theories that state that the density range should be very small.

On the other hand, individual lattice analysis allowed us to show the zero-point motion of the electrons, which was captured by blurred images at the time the Wigner crystal was taken.

The stable formation of this crystalline electron lattice is proof that old theories can be tested, while at the same time opening up a new field of research in quantum physics.