Layers of material which work as filters, electrodes, transistors and the liquidcrystal itself are deposited onto a thin glass plate to form a sandwich that is covered with another pane of glass.
They've shown that a synthetically grown sample of herbertsmithite crystal (what you see above) behaves as a quantum spin liquid: a material where fractional quantum states produce a liquid-like flux in magnetic orientations, even if the material is solid.