Department of Applied Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.
Science. 2017 Sep 29;357(6358):1378-1381. doi: 10.1126/science.aal2426. Epub 2017 Sep 28.
Interacting atoms or molecules condense into liquid, and, when cooled further, they form a crystal. The time evolution of the atomic or molecular ordering has been widely studied as a nonequilibrium emergence of order from a supercooled liquid or a glass. Interacting electrons in a variety of correlated electron systems also form crystals, but observing the time evolution of electronic crystallization has been experimentally challenging. Here, working with an organic conductor exhibiting a supercooled charge liquid or charge glass as a metastable state, we observed electronic crystal growth through resistivity and nuclear magnetic resonance measurements. The temperature profile of the crystal growth is similar to those observed in classical systems and reveals two distinct regimes for the mechanism of electronic crystallization.
相互作用的原子或分子凝聚成液体，进一步冷却后，它们形成晶体。原子或分子有序化的时间演化作为过冷液体或玻璃中非平衡有序的出现已经得到了广泛的研究。各种关联电子系统中的相互作用电子也形成晶体，但观察电子结晶的时间演化在实验上具有挑战性。在这里，我们使用一种表现出过冷电荷液体或电荷玻璃作为亚稳态的有机导体，通过电阻率和核磁共振测量观察到电子晶体的生长。晶体生长的温度分布与在经典系统中观察到的温度分布相似，揭示了电子结晶机制的两个不同区域。
