Quanta | Strange Metal-like Bonds Discovered in Customized Crystals

A view of nanoparticles in a crystalline pattern.
Nanoparticles covered in “linker” strands of DNA can arrange themselves into novel forms of matter.

Quanta Magazine 

September 2019

While studying materials made from DNA-coated nanoparticles, researchers found a new form of this matter: lattices in which smaller particles roam like electrons in metallic bonds.