Electronic Specific Heats in Tungsten and Zinc

Abstract

Calorimetric measurements have been made in the liquid helium temperature region on tungsten and zinc. For tungsten, the specific heat could be resolved into a lattice $T^3$ function with Debye $\theta =169\mathrm{}$ °K and an electronic term $\gamma T$ with $\gamma =51.1\mathrm{}\times {10}^{-4\mathrm{}}$ cal./mole/${\mathrm{degree}}^2$. The anomalously low $\theta$-value may indicate the existence of a hidden transition at low temperatures. A discussion is given of the high value of $\gamma$ and it is suggested that a recalculation of the energy spectrum at both high and low temperatures may be required and that correlation forces may be partly responsible for the observed result. For zinc, measurements were also carried out on a powder with average particle size = 1.3×${10}^{-4\mathrm{}}$ cm in order to assess the significance of size effects. The results showed that the powder had a specific heat identical with that for zinc in bulk, given by a Debye $\theta =291\mathrm{}$ °K and an electronic term $\gamma T$ with $\gamma =1.50\mathrm{}\times {10}^{-4\mathrm{}}$ cal./mole/${\mathrm{degree}}^2$.