Electrical resistivity of alkali metals: Inflation–deflation effect of Fermi surface

Abstract

The electrical resistivity of liquid alkali metals was calculated using the extended Ziman formula. The possible role of Fermi surface (FS) inflation–deflation (ID) was examined. The calculations reveal that replacing the sharp free electron FS by the expanded (respectively, contracted) one substantially improves the results. This was achieved directly by considering a FS correction factor of the Fermi radius and indirectly by a shift in the muffin-tin zero (MTZ) of the potential from its initial values. Consequently, a correlation between the shift of the MTZ of the potential and the FS factor parameter is revealed. The role of this correlation might contribute to a better understanding of the electron transport properties of other liquid metals and their alloys.

Keywords:

• liquid alkali metal
• electrical resistivity
• inflation–deflation effect
• Fermi surface

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Corrigendum

Acknowledgement

Dr. A. Ben Abdellah acknowledges a visiting research support IG/SCI/PHY/08/03 extended to him by the Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman.