Yuiga Nakamura

Heat a crystal, and its atoms start to tremble more vigorously, like strings tightened or loosened. In a LaCoO3 crystal (a compound of lanthanum, cobalt, and oxygen), heating from 2 to 650 K triggers two major rearrangements: around 100 K, the magnetic state of cobalt ions changes, and around 550 K, the material transforms from an insulator into a…

The dance floor is packed with people, each moving on their own. Suddenly, some of them break into pairs (spinning around, barely noticing their neighbors) while the rest line up in chains. That's roughly how atoms behave in the metal CsCr₃Sb₅, a member of the kagome metals, whose crystal lattice resembles a woven basket.

A house with cork walls suddenly gets covered in copper sheets, but only when frost sets in. That's roughly how FeSb₂ behaves when made into a film just a few atomic layers thick. Under normal conditions, it's a narrow-gap insulator: electrons sit tightly in place like spectators in an overcrowded hall.