Electrical-conduction mechanisms in polymer–copper-particle composites. I. Temperature and high-magnetic-field dependence of the conductivity

Abstract

A new method for the preparation of conducting copper-polymer composites is proposed. The origin of the electrical-conduction mechanism in these plastics is determined from an analysis of the temperature (T=4–300 K) and magnetic-field dependence (B=0–15 T) of the resistance. The observed saturation of the conductivity at high concentrations of the metallic particles is due to electrical transport across microcontacts between the copper particles. At low temperature these microcontacts are in the Sharvin regime (ballistic regime). This model for the electrical conduction can be extrapolated to similar systems and suggests ways to efficiently produce highly conductive plastic-metal composites.