Supersolids are a strange quantum state of matter that combines properties of solids and liquids.

Now they’ve gotten even more mind-bending, as scientists have transformed light itself into a supersolid. It’s a breakthrough that could lead to new quantum and photonic technologies.

Beyond the everyday solids, liquids, gases, and plasmas, an entire zoo of exotic states of matter exists. Long theorized but only recently created, a supersolid has a crystalline structure like a regular solid, but it can also, counterintuitively, flow freely like a fluid.