Determination of the Ideal Resistivity and of the Deviation from Matthiessen's Rule in Silver

Abstract

Measurements of the temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity of strained and annealed samples of very pure Ag between 1.4 and 295 °K have permitted the unambiguous and precise determination of the ideal resistivity ρi and of the deviation from Matthiessen's rule ρM. Between 12 and 23 °K, ρi varies as[Formula: see text]and has been attributed to normal and umklapp scattering. Below 10 °K an additional term with a T3.86 ± 0.08 behavior appears and is attributed to one-step umklapp scattering. For samples with [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] over the entire temperature range. Below 10 °K the variation of ρM with temperature and with defect concentration is described in terms of the theory of phonon-assisted defect scattering proposed by Klemens.