Abstract
In his 1973 Kelvin Lecture*, entitled “Conduction in Amorphous Materials”, Sir Nevill Mott made the connection between the recently observed behaviour of MOS Transistors at low temperatures and the conduction processes in chalcogenides and other glassy materials.
The common feature of these two, disparate, situations would be the role of disorder on the electronic density of states and the conduction process.
This early insight into the use of semiconductor devices to explore wider physical questions stimulated a large experimental effort, initially on localisation and its consequences such as the Quantum Hall Effect.
This has developed over time and now extends into other areas most notably the role of dimensionality and quantum phenomena.
In this lecture, progress on the application of semiconductor devices, and technology, for exploration of fundamental physical phenomena will be discussed and a summary will be presented on the present uses of such devices.
This will include effects based on the use of electrostatic confinement for inter-dimensional transitions and quantisation phenomena.
The value of resistance as a critical parameter was first pointed out by Mott, and a notable example will be shown to arise in the case of one-dimensional electron transport.
*N.F.Mott, Electronics & Power, Volume 19, 321 – 324, 1973
