The August issue of Nature Physics published an important paper in the field of condensed matter physics written by Northeastern professor of physics Sergey V. Kravchenko and research associate Svetlana Anissimova, along with research colleagues in New York, Israel, and the Netherlands. The paper answers a question that has existed since Kravchenko's 1994 research refuted the belief that there was no true metallic behavior—a major tenet of condensed matter physics.

Ever since, scientists have questioned whether or not electrons can conduct in two dimensions at very low temperatures. In their paper, Kravchenko and colleagues answer the question in the affirmative, revealing that electron-electron interaction grows in the metallic phase as the temperature is reduced and is suppressed in the insulating phase. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first observation of the temperature dependence of the strength of the electron-electron interactions," says Kravchenko.