Electronic Confinement in Organic Metals

The Bechgaard salts, an unusual class of organic conductors, have yielded a rich variety of electronic phenomena. In particular, they exhibit low dimensionality, allowing the study of the peculiar behavior of electrons in nearly one-dimensional systems. In their Perspective, Bourbonnais and JA©rome discuss results reported in the same issue by Vescoli et al . on optical measurements of several Bechgaard salts, possible evidence for an important phase called the Luttinger liquid.