Seoul: A team of South Korean scientists has made the first-ever discovery of electronic crystallites within a solid material, a breakthrough expected to advance the understanding of high-temperature superconductivity, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the research led by Professor Kim Keun-su at Yonsei University in Seoul was documented in a paper titled “Electronic rotons and Wigner crystallites in a two-dimensional dipole liquid,” published in the prestigious journal Nature. This discovery marks the first experimental observation of a structure first theorized by physicist Eugene Wigner in 1934, known as Wigner crystal. This structure is a solid or crystalline formation of an electron gas caused by strong repulsion between electrons at low electron density, contrasting the typical understanding of crystal formations due to atomic attractions.
“Until now, scientists have had a dichotomous perception of electrons: those with order and those without order,” Profe
ssor Kim explained. “But our research found a third type of electronic crystallites with short-range crystalline order.” This new category of electronic crystallites, measuring between 1 to 2 nanometers, was observed using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and the Advanced Light Source at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States.
The implications of this discovery are significant, providing new insights that could potentially unravel the mysteries of high-temperature superconductivity and superfluidity. These areas have long posed challenges to physicists and hold promising potential for technological applications in energy, transportation, healthcare, and electronics.