Nevill Francis Mott

Sir Nevill Francis Mott (1905-1996) was a British theoretical physicist. He shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physics with Philip W. Anderson and John Van Vleck for his work on the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems, particularly amorphous semiconductors, research that clarified why magnetic or amorphous materials can be metallic in some conditions and insulating in others. Several phenomena bear his name, including the Mott insulator and the Mott transition.