Fundamentals of Low Dimensional Physics

Abstract

In the last decade the technological drive towards smaller microelectronic devices has given rise to the concept of low-dimensional physics in two distinct contexts. The earlier referred to low meaning less than three, and the properties of two-dimensional electron systems (as in the inversion layer in Si MOSFETs or at the modulation doped GaAs/Al_xGa_1−xAs heterojunction) is now a mature, even aging, subject. More recently, low has come to small, as in the physics of microstructures, where the feature size of the sample is small compared with intrinsic length scales of the physics under investigation (e.g. mean-free path of electrons or even the inter-electron separation). In this introductory set of lectures, some of the basic physics pertaining to both meanings will be described, with a tutorial emphasis. Many of the following speakers will take up the contemporary points of interest, and expand where appropriate on the ideas expressed here. The introductory overview of fabrication technologies covers the preparation of the samples that we investigate.