Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara have passed a powerful beam of light through two chemical compounds and discovered an exotic material made from subatomic quasiparticles. They called the new material a “bosonic-associated insulator”—it’s a highly ordered crystal of excitons that belong to subatomic quasiparticles. And this is a new state of matter.

Subatomic particles can be broken down into fermions and bosons. They differ from each other in their rotation and interaction properties. Fermions, like quarks and electrons, are considered the building blocks of matter – atoms are composed of them, and these particles are characterized by a semi-integer spin. Bosons, on the other hand, are carriers of interaction – photons in particular belong to them – and are considered a kind of glue of the universe, as they bind together the fundamental forces of nature. These lobes have entire ridges; Fermions don’t “like” getting together, while several bosons can be at the same point in space at the same time.

It is also known that two fermions form a boson. If a negatively charged electron forms a bond with a positively charged “hole” (half-particle), then together they form a bosonic quasiparticle called an exciton. American scientists decided to study the interaction of excitons by placing a tungsten disulfide lattice on a similar tungsten diselenide lattice and constructing a model called moire. Next, the scientists directed a powerful beam of light to both grids, so the excitons began to actively collide, forming a new crystalline substance with a neutral charge – an associated boson insulator.

The researchers said this is the first time this new state of matter has been created in a “real” matter system rather than a synthetic one, providing clues to a new understanding of boson behavior. And it paves the way for the creation of a new kind of bosonic material.