When electrons that repel each other are confined to a small space, they can form an ordered crystalline state known as a Wigner crystal. Observing the fragile crystal is tricky, since it requires extreme conditions including low temperatures and densities, as well as noninvasive imaging probes. To overcome the challenging conditions of imaging, I. Shapir and a research team in the departments of Physics and Condensed Matter Physics in Israel, Romania and Hungary created conditions in a carbon nanotube (NT) to house the electrons. They followed this experimental step by using a second nanotube as a probe (called "probe NT") to scan the first nanotube (termed "system NT"). The physicists measured the electronic densities and showed their consistency with theoretical predictions to demonstrate small Wigner crystals of up to six electrons in one dimension (1-D). The results are now published in Science.
