Phase transitions are a fundamental piece of physics and chemistry. We’re all familiar with different phases of water, for example, but this idea of a system of particles changing what it looks like and how it behaves is really ubiquitous in science. And while we know the outcome of water changing into ice, the precise process leads to many different kinds of ice: sometimes ice is transparent and other times not, and the difference has to do with how you freeze it. Thus, studying how a phase transition happens tells us a lot about fundamental physics, and about the resulting phases on both sides.
Source:
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-zapping-quantum-materials-lasers-atoms.html