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Updated: Feb 23, 2026

On-Chip Crystallization and Large-Scale Serial Diffraction at Room Temperature
Published on: March 11, 2022
Time crystals: a review
Krzysztof Sacha1, Jakub Zakrzewski1
1Instytut Fizyki imienia Mariana Smoluchowskiego and Mark Kac Complex Systems Research Center, Uniwersytet Jagielloński, ulica Profesora Stanisława Łojasiewicza, 11 PL-30-348 Kraków, Poland.
Abstract:
Time crystals are time-periodic self-organized structures postulated by Frank Wilczek in 2012. While the original concept was strongly criticized, it stimulated at the same time an intensive research leading to propositions and experimental verifications of discrete (or Floquet) time crystals-the structures that appear in the time domain due to spontaneous breaking of discrete time translation symmetry. The struggle to observe discrete time crystals is reviewed here together with propositions that generalize this concept introducing condensed matter like physics in the time domain. We shall also revisit the original Wilczek's idea and review strategies aimed at spontaneous breaking of continuous time translation symmetry.
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