Ordinary matter, when cooled, transitions from a gas into a liquid. Cool it further still, and it freezes into a solid. Quantum matter, however, can behave very differently. In the early 20th century, researchers discovered that when helium is cooled, it transitions from a seemingly ordinary gas into a so-called superfluid. Superfluids flow without losing any energy, among other quantum quirks, like an ability to climb out of containers.

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Physicists observed a superfluid transition into what appears to be a supersolid for the first time using bilayer graphene. The team created excitons (quasiparticles formed from electrons and holes) in graphene sheets under a magnetic field, which behaved as a superfluid at high density but stopped moving and became an insulator at lower density. This insulating phase melted back into a superfluid at higher temperatures, suggesting the formation of an exotic exciton solid. The discovery provides the first solid evidence of a spontaneous superfluid-to-supersolid transition, resolving a decades-old question in condensed matter physics.

Superfluids are supposed to flow indefinitely. Physicists just watched one stop moving

Chasing higher-temperature quantum states