Abstract: Despite intense work over decades the transition-metal
oxides still hold a large number of mysteries, which await to be unraveled.
Among these are striking metal-insulator transitions, unexpected
crystallographic transformations, exciting types of magnetic order, heavy-fermion
behaviour, and high-temperature superconductivity. Key materials are, e.g., the
binary vanadates and which display five-order changes in
conductivity at their respective transition temperatures, the perovskite-related
manganates with their colossal magnetoresistance, as well as a large number of
titanates, cobaltates, and cuprates. More recently, the oxides of the transition metals have also aroused
considerable interest.
Keywords and phrases: electronic structure, metal-insulator transition, transition-metal oxides.
