Quick search Find article
Quick search
Find article

The electrical conductivity of very thin metal films

D Gottlieb and V Halpern

Show affiliations


The solution of the Boltzmann transport equation to calculate the electrical conductivity of very thin metal films is a difficult mathematical problem. However, on physical grounds one expects this conductivity to depend on the total rate of scattering of the electrons, and not on the scattering rate weighted in favour of large-angle scattering as is the case for bulk crystals. This hypothesis has been confirmed by analysis of the results of previous calculations, and by calculations using a new technique that the authors have developed. Thus, it is found that the standard Fuchs-Sondheimer results are applicable to films whose thickness is less than 1/100 of the electron mean free path lb, provided that one inserts in this theory the value, lb0, appropriate to the total scattering rate. In practice, the use of lb in place of lb0 usually introduces only a small error.


PACS

73.61.At Metal and metallic alloys

68.55.-a Thin film structure and morphology

73.50.Bk General theory, scattering mechanisms

73.50.Gr Charge carriers: generation, recombination, lifetime, trapping, mean free paths

Subjects

Surfaces, interfaces and thin films

Dates

Issue 12 (December 1976)



  1. The electrical conductivity of very thin metal films

    D Gottlieb and V Halpern 1976 J. Phys. F: Met. Phys. 6 2333

  2. South West Conference on Personal Decontamination and Internal Dosimetry

    2009 J. Radiol. Prot. 29 549

  3. Electromotive force

    A C Rose-Innes 1985 Phys. Educ. 20 272

  4. Self-driven lattice-model Monte Carlo simulations of alloy thermodynamic properties and phase diagrams

    A van de Walle and M Asta 2002 Modelling Simul. Mater. Sci. Eng. 10 521

  5. General pseudotensors and quasilocal quantities

    James M Nester 2004 Class. Quantum Grav. 21 S261

  6. Average transmission probability of a random stack

    Yin Lu et al 2010 Eur. J. Phys. 31 47

  7. Polybutylene terephthalate on metals: a density functional theory and cluster models investigation

    Melanie David et al 2006 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 18 1137

  8. The evaluation of key comparison data: determining the largest consistent subset

    Maurice G Cox 2007 Metrologia 44 187

  9. A new vertex-finding algorithm for the oblique rotation step in factor analysis

    M Van Daele et al 1991 Phys. Med. Biol. 36 77

  10. Independent atomic timescale in Poland—organization and results

    J Azoubib et al 2003 Metrologia 40 S245

Related review articles

What's this?
View review articles related to this research to gain an insight into the key trends in this subject area. Related review articles are selected based on PACS/MSC codes, and are no more than three years old.

  1. Nanofilamentary resistive switching in binary oxide system; a review on the present status and outlook
  2. Quantum size effect on ultra-thin metallic films

View by subject




Export








Please login to access our web services, or create an account if you don't yet have one.

You must have cookies enabled in your web browser to be able to login.

Username
Password

Forgotten your password? Get a new one here.