Time crystals represent a new phase of matter proposed by Frank Wilczek, the Nobel laureate of Physics in 2004; they can break original time-translation symmetry and create new time oscillations spontaneously.

Recently, a joint research team from the National Time Service Center (NTSC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai Jiao Tong University observed a time crystal in a spin maser system.

The results are published in Communications Physics.