The electrical conduction mechanism in the film plane of ultrathin, evaporated metal films was investigated. These films consist of a planar array of many small discrete islands. The conduction process consists of, first, charge carrier creation which is thermally activated and involves charge transfer between initially neutral particles, and, second, the drift velocity of these charges in an applied field. Charge transfer between particles occurs by tunneling. The following features were predicted and can be verified experimentally: the conductivity depends exponentially on reciprocal temperature, and it should be independent of field at low fields. Deviations from the exponential temperature dependence can be understood in terms of a spectrum of activation energies, while deviations from Ohm's law at high fields can be explained readily in terms of a field dependent activation energy. (Author).

It is known that some of the abnormal magnetic properties of ultrathin metal films, and their electrical conduction mechanism, can be explained on the basis of their "island" structure. It can be shown that the electrical conductivity and the temperature coefficient of resistance are controlled principally by the radius of the islands and the distances between them. By suitably adjusting these structural parameters, both of which enter the relation for the film conductivity exponentially, one can be made to predominate over the other. Thus, if the islands and the distances between them are small, very large negative temperature coefficients are observed. On the other hand, if the islands are very large or the thermal expansion coefficient of the substrate is unusually high, positive temperature coefficients can be observed, often several times larger than even the bulk values, even for films of resistances as high as 10 to the 6th power omega/square or higher.

This volume contains a discriminating selection of papers with commentaries by one of the most creative theoretical physicists of our century, Nobel Laureate Sir Nevill Mott. His pioneering contributions (1928 – 1993) include Fermi liquid theory, metal-insulator transition, the theory of noncrystalline materials, high-temperature superconductivity and many other discoveries.

A bestseller in its first edition, The Circuits and Filters Handbook has been thoroughly updated to provide the most current, most comprehensive information available in both the classical and emerging fields of circuits and filters, both analog and digital. This edition contains 29 new chapters, with significant additions in the areas of computer-