A New Method for the Determination of the Bulk Electrical Resistivity and the Bulk Mean Free Path in Metals

A new method to obtain the surface resistivity ρ s in one platelike sample is developed. The resistivity ρ s is given as the difference between the high-field magnetoresistivity in the Sondheimer geometry and that in the MacDonald-Sarginson geometry. The bulk resistivity ρ b is obtained from the apparent zero-field resistivity ρ 0 subtracted by ρ s . Using these values of ρ 0 and ρ b , the bulk mean free path l b is calculated according to the Fuchs-Sondheimer theory of the size effect for a thin film. This method has been applied to samples of zone-refined aluminium. For these samples a value of 0.18±0.01 fΩm 2 has been obtained at 4.2 K for the specific surface resistivity. The product of ρ b and l b is estimated to be 0.80±0.04 and 0.84±0.03 fΩm 2 for the single-crystal and the polycrystalline samples, respectively.