Table of contents

As the study of Brownian movement is the key to the understanding of all dissipative phenomena, the author uses it to introduce the concepts which are then made use of in a specific dissipative model. The author discusses the 'one-body dissipation model' in its richness of phenomena and compares its predictions to measured data. Special attention is paid to the non-equilibrium relation between friction (or mobility) and diffusion.

The authors review the properties of the five quasi-one-dimensional conductors abbreviated as TEA(TCNQ)₂, MTPP(TCNQ)₂, MTPAs(TCNQ)₂, MNEB(TCNQ)₂ and MEM(TCNQ)₂. The results from different measurements are compared with the existing theories of conductors with quarter-filled bands in which the electron-electron interaction is taken into account. These interactions are important in all five materials, but they divide into two groups in which the electron-electron interaction is relatively weak: (TEA(TCNQ)₂, MTPP(TCNQ)₂ and MTPAs(TCNQ)₂), and relatively strong: (MNEB(TCNQ)₂ and MEM(TCNQ)₂).

The author reviews the current state of knowledge of the structure and surface states of several clean low-index faces of silicon. These are the (100) face, the (111) 7*7 face, the (111) 1*1 face and the (111) 2*1 cleavage face. A new model for the latter is also proposed. Aided particularly by scanning tunneling microscopy results there appears to be grounds for some confidence that the structures of most of the above reconstructed surfaces are now understood. In addition to reviewing results from a variety of experimental techniques used on clean surfaces, results for gas covered and metal covered surfaces are also summarised.