Broken symmetry and strangeness of the semiconductor impurity band metal-insulator transition.

The filamentary model of the metal-insulator transition in randomly doped semiconductor impurity bands is geometrically equivalent to similar models for continuous transitions in dilute antiferromagnets and even to the lambda transition in liquid He, but the critical behaviors are different. The origin of these differences lies in two factors: quantum statistics and the presence of long range Coulomb forces on both sides of the transition in the electrical case. In the latter case, in addition to the main transition, there are two satellite transitions associated with disappearance of the filamentary structure in both insulating and metallic phases. These two satellite transitions were first identified by Fritzsche in 1958, and their physical origin is explained here in geometrical and topological terms that facilitate calculation of critical exponents.