In condensed matter physics, the Fermi surface is an abstract boundary useful for predicting the thermal, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties of metals, semimetals, and doped semiconductors. The shape of the Fermi surface is derived from the periodicity and symmetry of the crystalline lattice and from the occupation of electronic energy bands. The existence of a Fermi surface is a direct consequence of the Pauli exclusion principle, which allows a maximum of one electron per quantum state.
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“The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)