Abstract
MISS I. STONE1, in 1898, appears to have been one of the first to make a study of the anomalous increase in specific resistivity of very thin metal films as compared with specimens in bulk, although the phenomenon was already known. Films of silver as thin as ˜ 1 × 10-6 cm. deposited by the 'Rochelle salt process' were used by her. Longden2 extended this work to evaporated films of platinum, and since that time a considerable amount of work has been carried out on such thin films (for example, bibliography in ref. 3). J. J. Thomson4 first proposed that the physical limitation of conductor size would produce a shortening of the electron mean free path, with a consequent reduction of effective conductivity, and derived a theoretical expression based on an assumption of a constant mean free path in the bulk metal.
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References
Stone, I., Phys. Rev., 6, 1 (1898).
Longden, A. C., Phys. Rev., 11, 40, 84 (1900).
Bartlett, R. S., Phil. Mag., 5, 848 (1928).
Thomson, J. J., Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc., 11, 120 (1901).
Andrew, E. R., Proc. Phys. Soc., 62, 77 (1949).
Fuchs, K., Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc., 34, 100 (1938).
MacDonald, D. K. C., and Mendelssohn, K., Nature, 161, 972 (1948).
Patterson, J., Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc., 11, 118 (1901).
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MACDONALD, D. Influence of a Magnetic Field on the Size-Variation of Electrical Conductivity. Nature 163, 637–638 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163637b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163637b0
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