Focus on Cold Atoms in Optical Lattices

Imagine you could produce an artificial crystal for quantum matter, defect free and with complete control over the periodic crystal potential. The shape of the periodic potential, its depth and the interactions between the underlying particles could be changed at will and the particles could be moved around in a highly controlled way, at essentially zero temperature. This sounds almost too good to be true, but it is in fact what optical lattices have made possible for cold and ultracold atoms.