Junwei Liu

Two thin layers of a semiconductor were twisted relative to each other by 2.29 degrees, like two sheets of transparent paper with printed grids. Where the lines nearly align, a large pattern of dark and bright spots emerges. Electrons in this pattern behave very differently from those in a regular crystal.

A translator works in two worlds at once: to an outside observer, they are silent and unobtrusive, but inside their mind, a flurry of activity unfolds along clear lines of meaning. Altermagnets, a recently discovered class of magnetic materials, are much the same.