Residual Resistivity of Some Metallic Elements

In the present article, the residual resistivity of some metallic elements of the periodic table is reported on the basis of model potential formalism. Ashcroft's well known empty core (EMC) model potential is explored first time with five different types of the local field correction functions proposed by Hartree (H), Taylor (T), Ichimaru-Utsumi (IU), Farid et al (F) and Sarkar et al (S) to investigate the effect of the exchange and correlation on the aforesaid properties. The comparisons of presently computed results are found in qualitative agreement with available theoretical and experimental findings. Present investigation of the residual resistivity is found to be quite sensitive to the selection of local field correction function and showing a significant variation with the change in the function. I. INTRODUCTION It is well known that lattice defects and impurities destroy the periodicity of the lattice. The defects are intrinsic to real crystals and determine or modify the properties of real materials. For example, the point defects such as vacancies and interstitials modify the electrical properties because they contribute to the residual resistivity. The main source of the residual resistivity is the scattering of conduction electrons by phonons. Other source of resistance due to lattice imperfections are : (i) replacement of one atomic species by another atomic species, (ii) disappearance of an atom (or ion) from one site with its emergence at another site, (iii) displacement of an atom around a distorted site and (iv) stacking fault. The resistance due to these static imperfections (and grain boundaries) is called residual resistance. At low temperatures, the residual resistance due to such imperfections can be significant. This is because at low temperatures the exited phonons carry little momentum and deflect the electron through a small angle, which makes little contribution to the resistivity. At high temperatures, the contribution due to imperfections is small compared to that due to scattering of the conduction electrons by phonons. The absence of an atom or an ion at a lattice site (i.e. a vacancy) also contributes to the residual resistivity or residual resistivity, which modifies the potential at that site and acts as a perturbation to the conduction electrons. These vacancies are among the static imperfection [1-10].