Email Print Share
May 17, 2024

Electron correlation

Physicists discovered that isolating five ultrathin flakes of graphite, stacked in a specific order, allows the electrons moving around inside the material to talk with each other, a process known as electron correlation (pictured here). The resulting material can then be tuned to exhibit important properties, from superconductivity to magnetism.

[Research supported by U.S. National Science Foundation grants DMR 2225925, DMR 1231319 and DMR 2128556.]

Learn more in the MIT news story MIT physicists turn pencil lead into "gold." (Date of image: 2023; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: May 17, 2024)

Credit: Sampson Wilcox/Research Laboratory of Electronics


Images and other media in the National Science Foundation Multimedia Gallery are available for use in print and electronic material by NSF employees, members of the media, university staff, teachers and the general public. All media in the gallery are intended for personal, educational and nonprofit/non-commercial use only.

Images credited to the National Science Foundation, a federal agency, are in the public domain. The images were created by employees of the United States Government as part of their official duties or prepared by contractors as "works for hire" for NSF. You may freely use NSF-credited images and, at your discretion, credit NSF with a "Courtesy: National Science Foundation" notation.

Additional information about general usage can be found in Conditions.

Also Available:
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (965.6 KB)

Use your mouse to right-click (Mac users may need to Ctrl-click) the link above and choose the option that will save the file or target to your computer.