Procedure for measuring electrical resistivity of anisotropic materials: A revision of the Montgomery method

A procedure for determining the electrical resistivity of anisotropic materials is presented. It offers several improvements to the well-known Montgomery method. One improvement, in particular, is the ability to obtain the electrical resistivity for all three axes of an orthorhombic crystal analytically, rather than using the iterative approach suggested by Montgomery for the third axis. All necessary equations are derived and their application in determining the tensor components of the electrical resistivity is explained in detail. Measurements on isotropic specimens were executed in order to test the foundations of the method. Measurements on anisotropic samples are compared with measurements obtained by using the standard four-probe method, revealing good agreement.

[1]  T. Okuda,et al.  Two-Dimensional Charge-Transport and Spin-Valve Effect in the Layered Antiferromagnet Nd 0.45 Sr 0.55 MnO 3 , 1999 .

[2]  Young-Uk Kwon,et al.  Observation of low field magnetoresistance in the layered manganite Sr1.6Sm1.4Mn2O7 , 1999 .

[3]  F. Lichtenberg Synthesis of perovskite-related layered AnBnO3n+2 = ABOX type niobates and titanates and study of their structural, electric and magnetic properties , 2001 .

[4]  H. C. Montgomery Method for Measuring Electrical Resistivity of Anisotropic Materials , 1971 .

[5]  R. Deltour,et al.  Electrical-conduction mechanisms in polymer-copper-particle composites. I. Temperature and high-magnetic-field dependence of the conductivity. , 1990, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.

[6]  C. Bergemann Exact voltage and current distribution in the rectangular geometry , 2005 .

[7]  B. Logan,et al.  Series for Computing Current Flow in a Rectangular Block , 1971 .

[8]  B. White,et al.  Anisotropic electrical resistivity of quasi-one-dimensionalLi0.9Mo6O17determined by the Montgomery method , 2007 .

[9]  Yi-Kuo Yu,et al.  Dimensional crossover in the purple bronze Li0.9Mo6O17. , 2007, Physical review letters.

[10]  K. Wang,et al.  Electrical conductivity of a bulk metallic glass composite , 2007 .

[11]  Qing’an Li,et al.  Spin-independent and spin-dependent conductance anisotropy in layered colossal-magnetoresistive manganite single crystals , 1999 .

[12]  M. Dressel,et al.  Extremely small energy gap in the quasi-one-dimensional conducting chain compound SrNbO3.41. , 2001, Physical review letters.

[13]  J. Nagamatsu,et al.  Superconductivity at 39 K in magnesium diboride , 2001, Nature.

[14]  A. Kleinsasser,et al.  Measurement of anisotropic resistivity and Hall constant for single-crystal YBa2Cu3O7-x. , 1987, Physical review letters.

[15]  C. D. Santos,et al.  Influence of Pr content on the kinetics of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ phase formation , 2001 .

[16]  Hideo Hosono,et al.  Iron-based layered superconductor La[O(1-x)F(x)]FeAs (x = 0.05-0.12) with T(c) = 26 K. , 2008, Journal of the American Chemical Society.