How Magnetic Needles on a Distorted Lattice Found a Common Rhythm
A crystal the size of half a matchbox was grown in a furnace, where a molten zone slowly crept along a rod, leaving perfectly ordered layers behind. Inside this crystal, copper ions sit at the nodes of a triangular lattice, but the triangles are slightly skewed, as if someone pressed on one corner. Each copper ion behaves like a tiny magnetic needle that can point up or down.