It has long been a dream to invent new materials from the "top down" choosing which atoms go where to engineer properties of interest. A technique created by researchers out of the Department of Physics and Astronomy enables them to "sketch" patterns of electrons into a programmable quantum material—lanthanum aluminate/strontium titanate or "LAO/STO". Using this approach, they can create quantum devices and with feature sizes comparable to the spacing between electrons, and even "sketch" artificial lattices for electrons to traverse, with extremely high precision.