Nevill Francis Mott

Sir Nevill Mott
Born	Nevill Francis Mott (1905-09-30)30 September 1905 Leeds, England
Died	8 August 1996(1996-08-08) (aged 90) Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England
Alma mater	University of Cambridge
Known for	Mott problem Mott insulator Mott scattering Mott polynomials Mott formula Mott variable-range hopping Mott–Bethe formula Mott–Gurney law Mott–Schottky equation Mott–Schottky plot Schottky–Mott rule Wannier–Mott exciton Band bending Pseudogap Mott Medal
Awards	FRS (1936) Hughes Medal (1941) Royal Medal (1953) Copley Medal (1972) A. A. Griffith Medal and Prize (1973) Faraday Medal (1973) Nobel Prize in Physics (1977)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics
Institutions	University of Manchester University of Cambridge University of Bristol
R.H. Fowler

Sir Nevill Francis Mott

But already in the middle of the 1930s, Mott's interests had broadened to include solid states, leading to two more books that would have a great impact on the development of the field in the years prior and after World War II. In 1936, Theory of the Properties of Metals and Alloys (written together with H. Jones) describes a simplified framework which led to rapid progress.^{[further explanation needed]}

The concept of nearly free valence electrons in metallic alloys explained the special stability of the Hume-Rothery phases if the Fermi sphere of the sp valence electron, treated as free, would be scattered by the Brillouin zone boundaries of the atomic structure. The description of the impurities in metals by the Thomas Fermi approximation would explain why such impurities would not interact at long range. Finally the delocalisation of the valence d electrons in transitional metals and alloys would explain the possibility for the magnetic moments of atoms to be expressed as fractions of Bohr magnetons, leading to ferro or antiferromagnetic coupling at short range. This last contribution, produced at the first international conference on magnetism, held in Strasbourg in May 1939, reinforced similar points of view defended at the time in France by the future Nobel laureate Louis Néel. In 1949, Mott suggested to Jacques Friedel to use the approach developed together with Marvey for a more accurate description of the electric-field screening of the impurity in a metal, leading to the characteristic long range charge oscillations. Friedel also used the concept developed in that book of virtual bound level to describe a situation when the atomic potential considered is not quite strong enough to create a (real) bound level of symmetry e ≠ o.^{[further explanation needed]} The consequences of these remarks on the more exact approaches of cohesion in rp as well as d metals were mostly developed by his students in Orsay.^{[further explanation needed]}

The second book, with Ronald Wilfred Gurney, On the Physical Chemistry of Solids was more wide-ranging. It treated notably of the oxidation of metals at low temperatures, where it described the growth of the oxide layer as due to the electric field developed between the metal and absorbed oxygen ions, which could force the way of metallic or oxygen ions through a disordered oxide layer. The book also analysed the photographic reactions in ionic silver compound in terms of precipitation of silver ions into metallic clusters.^{[citation needed]}

This second field had a direct and long lasting consequence on the research activity of John (Jack) Mitchell. Mott's accomplishments include explaining theoretically the effect of light on a photographic emulsion (see latent image). His work on oxidation, besides fostering new research in the field (notably by J. Bénard and Nicolás Cabrera), was the root of the concept of the band gap produced in semiconductors by gradients in the distribution of donor and acceptor impurities.^{[citation needed]}

During the war Mott worked on the role of plastic deformation in the progression of fracture cracks. When he returned to Bristol after the war, his having met and hired

N. F. Mott revived the old Philosophical Magazine and transformed it into a lively publication essentially centred on the then-new field of solid state physics, attracting writers, readers and general interest on a wide scale. After receiving a paper on point defects in crystals by Frederick Seitz that was obviously too long for the journal, Mott decided to create a new publication, Advances in Physics, for such review papers. Both publications are still active in 2017.

• N. F. Mott, "The Wave Mechanics of α-Ray Tracks", Proceedings of the Royal Society (1929) A126, pp. 79–84,
  doi:10.1098/rspa.1929.0205
  . (reprinted as Sec. I-6 of Quantum Theory and Measurement, J. A. Wheeler. and W. H. Zurek, (1983) Princeton).
• N. F. Mott, Metal-Insulator Transitions, second edition (Taylor & Francis, London, 1990).
  ISBN 978-0-85066-783-7
• N. F. Mott, A Life in Science (Taylor & Francis, London, 1986).
  ISBN 978-0-85066-333-4
• N. F. Mott, H. Jones, The Theory of Properties of Metals and Alloys, (Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1958)
• Brian Pippard, Nevill Francis Mott, Physics Today, March 1997, pp. 95 and 96: (pdf).

Awards and honours

In 1977, Nevill Mott was awarded the

Mott received an honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1972.^[11]

In 1981, Mott became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.^[12]

He continued to work until he was about ninety. He was made a

In 1995, Mott visited the Loughborough University Department of Physics and presented a lecture entitled "65 Years in Physics". The University continues to host the annual Sir Nevill Mott Lecture.^[14]

Personal life

Mott was married to Ruth Eleanor Horder, and had two daughters, Elizabeth and Alice. He died in Milton Keynes on 8 August 1996 at the age 90, Buckinghamshire. His autobiography, A Life in Science, was published in 1986 by Taylor & Francis.^[15] His great grandfather was Sir John Richardson , the arctic explorer.^[16]

References