Abstract
A detailed investigation of the thermal conductivity of pure, heavy rare-earth metals has been made in the range of temperatures 0.3–4.2 K. The results obtained on the 10 samples investigated (Gd, Dy, Ho, Er, Yb, and Tb) show that the thermal conductivity can be readily separated into a linear and a quadratic term in temperature. The linear term, when related to the residual electrical resistivity, gives Lorenz numbers which are remarkably close to the theoretical value and this indicates an electronic linear contribution to the thermal conductivity; the experimental evidence available suggests that the quadratic term is due to a phonon contribution. Interesting information on the scattering mechanisms for electrons and phonons is also obtained.
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This work was in part supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Instituto de Alta Cultura, Portugal (J.B.S.) and a Rhodes Scholarship (R.R.).
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Ratnalingam, R., Sousa, J.B. Thermal conductivity and Lorenz number of the heavy rare-earth metals. J Low Temp Phys 4, 401–414 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00628740
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00628740