Please explain in understandable detail

 

I think that up to this point in world history, there are four kinds of states of matter.  The ones I'm sure of are solid, liquid, gas, and I believe that plasma is a fourth.  (After I wrote that I did a very cursory search and it appears that's right.)

Well, guess why I'm writing this?  It appears that there's a fifth. 

Physicists Create New Phase of Matter Inside a Diamond

The new phase is a "time quasicrystal".  The first thing that I thought when I saw that was to wonder when this movie was coming out.  (Think about it:  The Time Traveler's Wife, Timecop, Time Bandits, The Time Machine, In Time, Hot Tube Time Machine ...)

Second was to seek a comprehensible explanation of what a time quasicrystal actually is.

The article says this:

"Much like the atoms in a normal crystal repeat patterns in space, the particles in a time crystal repeat patterns over time, Zu explained. In other words, they vibrate or “tick” at constant frequencies, making them crystallized in four dimensions: the three physical dimensions plus the dimension of time."

OK, maybe that helps a bit.  Next, a description of how they made it, which is impressive:

"The team built their quasicrystals inside a small, millimeter-sized chunk of diamond. They then bombarded the diamond with beams of nitrogen that were powerful enough to knock out carbon atoms, leaving atom-sized blank spaces. Electrons move into those spaces, and each electron has quantum-level interactions with its neighbors."

Of course.

Now, there might not be a movie, but here's a picture that makes it very clear.