Preparation and Physics of Novel Microstructures for Localization Studies

Abstract

It is now well established that disorder and reduced dimensionality have both interesting and profound effects on the behavior of conducting systems.[1–4] Anderson localization and modified electron-electron interactions are now familiar consequences of disorder. Interesting questions remain, however, as the various papers being presented at this conference attest. But, like many areas of contemporary condensed matter physics, further progress depends on more than good theory and experiment. One needs good materials and experimental systems — not simply systems that manifest the phenomena of interest, but so-called model systems, i.e., systems that exhibit the desired phenomena particularly clearly, and in which the relevant material parameters, structure, etc., can be controlled and varied. It is with such model systems that one generally gains the clearest insight and obtains the best quantitative tests of theory. And it is on the basis of this understanding that more complicated (and probably typical) systems can then be understood. This approach should be contrasted with exploratory systems, in which one attempts to find new phenomena or enter new parameter regimes by any means possible.