October 2003
To understand electronic properties of all a series of novel materials, physicists suggest theoretical concepts that only experimentation can validate. Many years may pass between the qualitative description of a phenomenon and its deep understanding. That is the case as far as a phenomenon called "Mott transition" is concerned, described as early as 1949. The review Science in date of October 3rd, 2003, publishes the first thorough study about this phenomenon, performed by researchers from the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides d’Orsay and the Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de l’École Normale Supérieure.