Physics of Metal-Nonmetal Transitions

Book excerpt: Material undergoes the transformation from metal to non-metal or from non-metal to metal when environmental conditions, such as temperature and pressure, or the percentages of constituent components are changed. Such a transition is known as the metal-nonmetal (M-NM) transition. This book, 'The Physics of Metal – Nonmetal Transitions', explores the mechanisms so far discovered which cause the M-NM transition and presents a systematic discussion of them. All the mechanisms are discussed in terms of energy bands, and the band theory is introduced and explained in chapter 2. Once chapters 1 and 2 have been assimilated, the remaining chapters can be read independently of each other if required. The mechanisms discussed therein include the Peierls transition, the Bloch-Wilson transitions – types I and II respectively – the second of which was discovered by the author and her students. Subsequent chapters cover the Anderson transition and the Mott transition, and each chapter includes not only traditional theories, but also updated information about more recent research. The book can be used either as a textbook for undergraduate and postgraduate students of science and technology or as an introductory treatise for researchers in a wide variety of fields.