Quantum Point Contacts and Beyond: New Results on Mesoscopic Conductance and Fluctuations

After a century of development, during which the microscopic foundations of transport kinetics were established as one of the great achievements of modern physics, the last decade and a half has seen fresh, indeed revolutionary, progress in the understanding of electrical conduction. This progress has never been so rapid as in the mesoscopic realm. It can be said that, in the place of more traditional microscopic perspectives, a succession of novel, simpler, and more succinct approaches have arisen to bolster our notions of mesoscopic transport physics.