Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
Thursday, November 4, 1999, 2 p.m.
Plant Sciences Building, Room 1130
The So-Called 2D Metal-Insulator Transition: An Old Story in a New Hat?
Sankar Das Sarma
(University of Maryland)
Abstract: Providing an entirely subjective introduction to
the currently frenziedly active field of the low density metal-insulator
transition in two dimensional (2D) electron gas systems, I will attempt
to critically discuss what is new and what is not, and distinguish what
is interesting (and perhaps even important) from what is not. The
talk will concentrate on the actual data instead of speculating on the
possible (and, by definition, unknown) zero-temperature phases of the system.
I will deconstruct several popular (and wildly speculative) theoretical
scenarios, and discuss how the temperature and magnetic field dependent
resistivity may be explained from the perspective of semiconductor transport
theories taking into account the peculiarities of the specific 2D systems
under study. I will conclude by emphasizing what, in my opinion,
is understood in this problem and what remains to be explained.
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