Electrical resistivity of the noble metals at low temperatures. I. Dilute alloys

Abstract

An analysis is presented of the low-temperature electrical resistivity of the noble metals. The deviations from Matthiessen's rule (DMR) are calculated by means of a variational solution to the Boltzmann equation, employing an electron distribution function that contains both an angular dependence and an energy dependence. Quantitative agreement with experiment is obtained for all the noble metals. The temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity is also calculated. It is shown that including the electron-electron scattering term provides the explanation for the unexpected T4 behaviour observed recently for the resistivity of all the noble metals in the temperature range 2<or approximately=T<or approximately=6K.