Ordinary size effects and deviations from Matthiessen's rule in the resistance of fine wires

Contrary to previous statements in the literature, large deviations from Matthiessen's rule in fine wiresare to be expected on the basis of a straight-forward solution of the ordinary transport equation, assuming the relaxation-time approximation and imposing the idealized condition of diffuse scattering of electrons at the boundaries. Using Chambers' path-integral method to evaluate the current density in a wire of arbitrary cross-sectional shape, the effects of boundary scattering on the resistivity in the regimed 0.1 have been calculated for two model Fermi surface geometries. For the temperature-dependent part of the resistivity, _d (T) _d (T)– _d (0), two distinct types of behavior are found in the alternative cases: (1) for a spherical Fermi surface, _d(T) increases logarithmically with _d(0); (2) for a cylindrical Fermi surface, _d (T) increases essentially linearly with _d (0). In each case the qualitative dependence of _d(0) on /d is, for practical purposes, linear. However, the correct value of the product in the cylindrical case is not simply given in the ordinary way by the slope of an empirical plot of _d (0) vs.d ^–1.] A comparison of theoretical results for the two simple models with the published data for indium and gallium shows that the actual temperature-dependent size effects are consistent, both qualitatively and, by a rough estimation, quantitatively, with the expected behavior.