Some factors influencing the resistance of thin metal films

I E N T summary of the early work on thin metallic films, performed prior to 1928, is provided by Bartlett(').The observations varied profoundlyA not only from one worker to another but also in the experiments of the same investigator performed under similar experimental conditions.As a result of these discrepancies, which arose partly from primitive technique and partly from uncontrolled factors whose importance was not then understood (condition and temperature of the substrate?adsorbed gas, etc.), various ad hoc hypotheses were produced to explain particular experiments and little advance was made towards obtaining experimental conditions which would give consistent and reproducible results.It would be useless to add to the already copious literature of speculation upon these early observations.This review is, therefore, confined to enunciating briefly and attempting to explain some of the chief experimental observations on the resistance of thin metal films prepared by evaporative deposition in a good vacuum.This method of preparation curtails considerably the number of arbitrary factors which can influence the resistance of the films; and in particular it gives some hope of minimising, if not eliminating, the effects due to adsorbed gas."J 2.