Abnormal drop in electrical resistivity with impurity doping of single-crystal Ag.

Resistivity is an intrinsic feature that specifies the electrical properties of a material and depends on electron-phonon scattering near room temperature. Reducing the resistivity of a metal to its potentially lowest value requires eliminating grain boundaries and impurities, but to date few studies have focused on reducing the intrinsic resistivity of a pure metal itself. We could reduce the intrinsic resistivity of single-crystal Ag, which has an almost perfect structure, by impurity doping it with Cu. This paper presents our results: resistivity was reduced to 1.35 μΩ · cm at room temperature after 3 mol% Cu-doping of single-crystal Ag. Various mechanisms were examined in an attempt to explain the abnormal behavior.