A tall glass of ice water isn’t just a thirst quencher; it’s also an everyday example of coexisting phases. Water can exist simultaneously in both liquid and solid phases. As it turns out, this phase duality can also exist in more exotic quantum materials, in ways that are far more complicated to tease apart.

A new study by MIT physicists sheds light on how two different phases of electron behavior can emerge and coexist in the same quantum material.

Their results, reported in the journal Nature Physics, can help explain how some materials host superconductivity, magnetism and other electronic phases. Untangling such phases and understanding how they emerge will help engineers control electronic behavior and design high-performance quantum devices.