Sir Nevill F. Mott
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Sir Nevill Francis Mott
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1977
Born: 30 September 1905, Leeds, United Kingdom
Died: 8 August 1996, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Prize motivation: “for their fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems”
Prize share: 1/3
Work
The electrical and magnetic properties of different materials, which are significant in electronics and other areas, are determined by the movements of electrons in relation to atomic nuclei and to one another. By observing the interaction between electrons, Nevill Mott explained in 1949 how certain crystals can alternate between being electrical conductors and insulators. He also has contributed to the development of new concepts for a deeper understanding of solid materials that do not have a regular crystalline structure but constitute disordered systems.
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