Title: Wigner crystals and their melting in atomically thin heterostructures

THURSDAY, APRIL, 21, 2022 11:00AM-11:50AM

Abstract: A Wigner crystal — a solid made entirely of electrons — is a model system for understanding electron correlation physics that underlies a wide range of phenomena, including high-temperature superconductivity and metal-insulator transitions. Despite decades of research, it has been challenging to realize Wigner crystals in the quantum regime where quantum fluctuations dominate over thermal ones. In this talk, I will introduce how atomically thin semiconductors, transition metal dichalcogenides, form an exciting new materials platform to investigate correlated electronic states. I will describe how we improve the materials quality, probe the formation of Wigner crystals from optical spectroscopy, and determine the phase diagrams of the crystals' classical and quantum melting. Finally, I will discuss how these experiments can open new avenues for simulating quantum many-body states and quantum information processing.