Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 12 January 2001:
Vol. 291. no. 5502, pp. 263 - 264
DOI: 10.1126/science.291.5502.263
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Perspectives

MOLECULAR METALS:
Staying Neutral for a Change

Patrick Cassoux

Molecular metals usually consist of charge-transfer salts of donor and acceptor molecules. The presence of formal nonintegral oxidation states in these salts was long believed to be a prerequisite for achieving metallicity. But as Cassoux describes in his Perspective, the study by Tanaka et al. rewrites the rules by demonstrating that neutral molecules can form molecular metals. This overturning of conceived wisdom is one in a long list of cases in which assumptions about conducting behaviors of materials had to be revised in the face of new experimental evidence.

The author is in the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination de Toulouse, CNRS, 205 Route de Narbonne, 31077 Toulouse, France. E-mail: cassoux{at}lcc-toulouse.fr

Read the Full Text

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)