Visualizing the impact of quenched disorder on 2D electron Wigner solids

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Source data are provided with this paper for the main figures. Any further data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors on request.

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All of the codes used in this article are available from the corresponding authors on request.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge helpful discussions with I. Esterlis, S. Kivelson, V. Calvera, B. Skinner, S. Joy and S. Das Sarma.

Funding

This work was financed by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division under contract DE-AC02-05-CH11231 within the van der Waals heterostructure programme KCWF16 (device fabrication, STM measurement). Support was also provided by the Department of Defense Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship N00014-23-1-2869 (surface preparation); National Science Foundation award DMR-2221750 (device characterization); and the Flatiron Institute, which is a division of the Simons Foundation (QMC simulation). Y.Y. acknowledges support from NSF DMR-2532734 (QMC simulation). S.A.T. acknowledges support from the US Department of Energy SC0020653 (excitonic metrology on transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) crystals), NSF CBET 2330110 (environmental tests of TMD crystals) and Applied Materials, Inc. for defect/dopant analysis. K.W. and T.T. acknowledge support from the JSPS KAKENHI (grants 21H05233 and 23H02052) and World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI), MEXT, Japan for hBN crystal fabrication/characterization.

Author information

Author notes

These authors contributed equally: Zhehao Ge, Conor Smith, Zehao He

Authors and Affiliations

Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

Zhehao Ge, Zehao He, Qize Li, Ha-Leem Kim, Ziyu Xiang, Jianghan Xiao, Wenjie Zhou, Salman Kahn, Aining Hu, Feng Wang & Michael F. Crommie

Center for Computational Quantum Physics, Flatiron Institute, New York, NY, USA

Conor Smith, Yubo Yang, Miguel A. Morales & Shiwei Zhang

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

Conor Smith

Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

Zehao He, Ha-Leem Kim, Ziyu Xiang, Jianghan Xiao, Salman Kahn, Feng Wang & Michael F. Crommie

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

Zehao He

Department of Physics and Astronomy, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, USA

Yubo Yang

Graduate Group in Applied Science and Technology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

Qize Li, Ziyu Xiang & Jianghan Xiao

Kavli Energy Nano Sciences Institute at the University of California Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

Ha-Leem Kim, Ziyu Xiang, Salman Kahn, Feng Wang & Michael F. Crommie

School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

Melike Erdi, Rounak Banerjee & Seth Ariel Tongay

Research Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan

Takashi Taniguchi

Research Center for Electronic and Optical Materials, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan

Kenji Watanabe

Authors

Zhehao Ge

Conor Smith

Zehao He

Yubo Yang

Qize Li

Ha-Leem Kim

Ziyu Xiang

Jianghan Xiao

Wenjie Zhou

Salman Kahn

Aining Hu

Melike Erdi

Rounak Banerjee

Takashi Taniguchi

Kenji Watanabe

Seth Ariel Tongay

Miguel A. Morales

Shiwei Zhang

Feng Wang

Michael F. Crommie

Contributions

Z.G., M.F.C. and F.W. conceived the work and designed the research strategy. Z.H., Q.L., Z.G. and W.Z. fabricated the BL-MoSe2 devices, with assistance from S.K. and A.H. Z.G. and Z.H. carried out STM measurements. C.S., Y.Y., M.A.M. and S.Z. performed NQS-QMC simulations. H.-L.K. performed BL-MoSe2 transport measurements. Z.G., Z.H., Q.L., Z.X., J.X., F.W. and M.F.C. discussed the experiment design and analysed the experimental data. M.E., R.B. and S.A.T. grew the MoSe2 crystals. K.W. and T.T. grew the hBN crystals. Z.G., M.F.C., F.W., C.S., Y.Y. and S.Z. wrote the paper. All authors commented on the paper.

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Zhehao Ge, Feng Wang or Michael F. Crommie.

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Ge, Z., Smith, C., He, Z. et al. Visualizing the impact of quenched disorder on 2D electron Wigner solids.

Nature 654, 902–908 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10654-w

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Received: 01 October 2025

Accepted: 12 May 2026

Published: 17 June 2026

Version of record: 17 June 2026

Issue date: 25 June 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10654-w