Melting Process

In the 1970s, theorists predicted that 2D melting would proceed via a so-called hexatic state in which the crystal breaks up into patches of local orientational order. The hexatic state's existence has been inferred from changes in resistance and other sample-averaged quantities. Now, the whole melting process—from a crystal through a hexatic state to a liquid—has been directly imaged. Isabel Guillamón of the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain, and her collaborators melted a lattice of superconducting vortices that forms in a thin film of tungsten under a magnetic field.

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