Collective effects in condensed conducting phases including low-dimensional systems

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Abstract
Naturally occurring materials such as some intercalation compounds, manmade semiconductor structures, and models are all brought to bear on the characterization of collective excitations in conducting condensed phases, including low-dimensional systems. In turn, plasmons, phonons plus electron-phonon collective effects, phase changes especially in relation to metal-non-metal transitions, and Luttinger liquids are considered. For plasmons and phonons, quite a wealth of experimental data on both metals and semiconductors now exist and, in selected areas, are brought into contact both with ab initio calculations and with theoretical models. For the latter, in addition to studies by many-body techniques, ‘experiment’ is invoked, but now in the form of computer simulation. This has played an especially important role in understanding Wigner electron solid formation quantitatively. Some attention is given also to metal-non-metal transitions in organic conductors, and the influence of directional chemical bonding in quite a number of the areas reviewed is stressed.