ScienceAugust 4, 2026

excitons

EK-sih-tonz

Definition

Quasiparticles consisting of a bound pair of an electron and an electron hole, acting as the fundamental units that form the quantum fluid described in the study.

Etymology

Derived from 'excitation' combined with the suffix '-on', used in physics to denote particles or quasiparticles. It was coined in 1931 by Yakov Frenkel to describe these electron-hole pairs.

In the news

The article describes creating a stable, tunable Bose-Einstein condensate from excitons in a 2D semiconductor, which allows researchers to study complex quantum states.

Quantum fluid reveals hidden states that can be switched with a magnetic field

Read the full article ↗

phys.org

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