Empirical Correlation between Impurity-Dependent and Size-Dependent Deviations from Matthiessen's Rule in Indium

Abstract

A study of published measurements on indium wires at liquid-helium temperatures indicates that the effects of boundary scattering and impurity scattering on the temperature dependence of electrical resistivity are equal, for equal values of ${\rho }_0°$K. This simple relation, and similar relations which may hold for other metals, appear to have important implications for proposed explanations of deviations from Matthiessen's rule.