Illinois team finds Wigner crystal -- not Mott insulator -- in 'magic-angle' graphene

Recently, scientists at MIT created a stir in the field of condensed matter physics when they showed that two sheets of graphene twisted at specific angles display two emergent phases of matter. Philip Phillips, professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Illinois, says a careful review of the MIT experimental data revealed that the insulating behavior of the "magic-angle" graphene is not Mott insulation, but something even more profound--a Wigner crystal.