Research activities in low dimensional conductors have shown a rapid growth since 1972 and have led to the discovery of new and remarkable phy sical properties unique to both molecular and inorganic conductors exhibi ting one-dimensional transport behaviour. This NATO Institute was a conti nuation of aseries of NATO Advanced Study Institutes of Worshops which took place at regular intervals till 1979. This is the first time, however, that charge density wave transport and electronic properties of low dimen sional organic conductors are treated on an equal footing. The program of the Institute was framed by tutorial lectures in the theories and experiments of low dimensional conductors. The bulk of the course covered two series of low-dimensional mate rials with their respective properties. 1) The I-D inorganic conductors exhibiting the phenomena of sliding charge density waves, narrow band noise, memory effects, etc ..• 2) Low-dimensional crystallized organic conductors giving rise to various possibilities of ground states, spin-Peierls, spin density wave, Peierls, superconductivity and magnetic-field induced spin density wave, etc ... Since it has been established from the beginning that this Institute was to be devoted essentially to the Physics of Low Dimensional Conductors, only one main course summarized the progress in chemistry and material preparation.

Semiconductors and Semimetals

In Bird of Passage by Rudolf Peierls, we find a paragraph in which he de scribes his Cambridge days in the 1930s: On these [relativistic field theory] problems my main contacts were Dirac, and the younger theoreticians. These included in particular Nevill (now Sir Nevill) Mott, perhaps the friendliest among many kind and friendly people we met then. Professor Kamimura became associated with Sir Rudolf Peierls in the 1950s, when he translated, with his colleagues, Peierls's 1955 textbook, Quantum Theory of Solids, into Japanese. This edition, to which Sir Rudolf himself contributed a preface, benefitted early generations of Japanese solid state physicists. Later in 1974/5, during a sabbatical year spent at the Cavendish Laboratory, Professor Kamimura met and began a long association with Sir Nevill Mott. In particular, they developed ideas for disordered systems. One of the outcomes is a paper coauthored by them on ESR-induced variable range hopping in doped semiconductors. A series of works on disordered systems, together with those on two-dimensional systems, have served as building blocks for Physics of Interacting Electrons in Disordered Systems, in the International Series of Monographs on Physics, coauthored by Aoki and published in 1989 by the Oxford University Press. Soon after Professor Kamimura obtained a D. Sc. in 1959 for the work on the ligand field theory under the supervision ofMasao Kotani, his strong con nections in the international physical community began when he worked at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1961/64.

The 21st conference proceedings continue the tradition of the ICPS series. The proceedings cover all aspects of semiconductor physics, including those related to materials, processing and devices. Plenary and invited speakers address areas of major interest.

This volume deals with physical properties of electrically one-dimensional conductors. It includes both a description of basic concepts and a review of recent progress in research. One-dimensional conductors are those materials in which an electric current flows easily in one specific crystal direction while the resistivity is very high in transverse directions. It was about 1973 when much attention began to be focussed on them and investigations started in earnest. The research was stimulated by the successful growth of crystals of the organic conductor TTF-TCNQ and of the inorganic conductor KCP. New concepts, characteristic of one dimension, were established in the in vestigations of their properties. Many new one-dimensional conductors were also found and synthesized. This field of research is attractive because of the discovery of new ma terials, phenomena and concepts which have only recently found a place in the framework of traditional solid-state physics and materials science. The relation of this topic to the wider field of solid-state sciences is therefore still uncertain. This situation is clearly reflected in the wide distribution of the fields of specialization of researchers. Due to this, and also to the rapid progress of research, no introductory book has been available which covers most of the important fields of research on one-dimensional conductors.

This work examines all aspects of organic conductors, detailing recent theoretical concepts and current laboratory methods of synthesis, measurement, control and analysis. It describes advances in molecular-scale engineering, including switching and memory systems, Schottky and electroluminescent diodes, field-effect transistors, and photovoltaic devices and solar cells.