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Condensed-matter physics

Indirect evidence

Nature volume 417, pages 599–601 (2002)Cite this article

The ease with which electrons move through some metals depends on which direction they take. Watching electrons move along metal planes gives new insight, curiously, into how they move between them.

One of the fundamental issues in condensed-matter physics is conductivity, in other words how charge is transported through a material in response to an applied electric field. The essence of the conduction phenomenon in most materials is understood, thanks to work done from the 1930s to the 1950s by Bloch, Peierls and others. Over the past decade, however, the accepted wisdom has been challenged by measurements made on a wide range of 'strongly correlated metals', such as high-temperature copper-oxide superconductors, in which interactions between the conduction electrons dominate the physics.

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  1. the Department of Physics, Columbia University, 538 West 120th Street, New York, 10027, New York, USA

    Andrew Millis

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  1. Andrew Millis
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Correspondence to Andrew Millis.

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Millis, A. Indirect evidence. Nature 417, 599–601 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/417599a

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