"Heavy-fermion compounds" are materials in which the conduction electrons move as if they were hundreds of times more massive than those in conventional metals. The reason for this phenomenon is very strong interactions between the electrons. The electronic structure of such systems is essentially three dimensional. Yuji Matsuda and colleagues at the University of Kyoto and Nagoya University (Japan) have now experimentally realized a two-dimensional CeIn_3 heavy fermion system, adjusting the dimensionality in a controllable fashion (Science 2010,327, 980).
展开▼
