Nevill Mott investigated electronic conduction in disordered solids, including glasses and amorphous semiconductors. When states are localized, a carrier can move by thermally assisted hopping rather than ordinary propagation through an extended band. The useful hopping distance balances weak overlap at long range against the availability of energetically accessible states. This connects a temperature-dependent conductivity with both the spatial localization and energy distribution of electronic states.[ref]
Electrons in Glass by Nevill Francis Mott. Nobel lecture, localized states, mobility and hopping conduction
Portrait of Nevill Mott
. GFHund / Friedrich Hund estate; existing portrait crop. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported selected from the File's alternatives; separate GFDL option not used., via Wikimedia Commons. Source.
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