Recently, a family of materials was discovered that feature atoms arranged in a so-called kagome lattice. In a ‘News & Views’ article, Erik van Heumen describes experiments, reported on in the latest edition of Nature Materials, that suggest the formation in these materials of a so-called ‘flux-density wave’, an excitation that provides the first confirmation of the theoretical predictions that these materials could host exotic, interacting quasi-particles. The fact that such tuneable interactions between quasi-particles in materials can now be created in the laboratory holds great promise for future studies of topological materials. Read more in the News & Views