Evolution of the Hall coefficient and the peculiar electronic structure of the cuprate superconductors

Although the Hall coefficient R-H is an informative transport property of metals and semiconductors, its meaning in the cuprate superconductors has been ambiguous because of its unusual characteristics. Here we show that a systematic study of R-H in La2-xSrxCuO4 single crystals over a wide doping range establishes a qualitative understanding of its peculiar evolution, which turns out to reflect a two-component nature of the electronic structure caused by an unusual development of the Fermi surface recently uncovered by photoemission experiments.