Leon Balents

In some crystals, electrons line up into a wave, like ripples on the surface of water, but made of charge. Usually, such a wave exists only in extreme cold. But in this experiment, scientists saw that traces of the wave persist even at room temperature.

Imagine a triangular grid with tiny magnetic arrows at each node. Electrons, the charge carriers, run across this grid. Usually, the arrows align simply: all pointing the same way (ferromagnet) or alternating in the plane.