The effect of reduced dimensionality, inherent at the crystallographic
level, on the electronic properties of low dimensional materials can be
dramatic, leading to structural and electronic instabilities--including
supercond- tivity at high temperatures, charge density waves, and
localisation--which continue to attract widespread interest. The layered
transition metal dichalcogenides have engaged attention for many years,
partly arising from the charge density wave effects which some show and
the controlled way in which their properties can be modified by
intercalation, while the development of epitaxial growth techniques has
opened up promising areas based on dichalcogenide heterostructures and
quantum wells. The discovery of high-temperature superconducting oxides,
and the realisation that polymeric materials too can be exploited in a
controlled way for various opto-electronic applications, have further
sti- lated interest in the effects of structural dimensionality. It
seems timely therefore to draw together some strands of recent research
involving a range of disparate materials which share some common char-
teristics of low dimensionality. This resulting volume is aimed at
researchers with specialist interests in the particular materials
discussed but who may also wish to examine the related phenomena
observed in different systems, and at a more general solid state
audience with broad interests in electronic properties and low
dimensional phenomena. Space limitations have required us to be
selective as regards particular materials, though we have managed to
include those as dissimilar as polymeric semiconductors, superconducting
oxides, bronzes and layered chalcogenides.
