Thermomigration in solid metals

Abstract Thermomigration, the flux of mass induced by an applied temperature gradient, is analyzed phenomenologically in a variety of alternate ways to demonstrate that the experimentally determined heat of transport does not contain contributions from equilibrium-thermodynamic quantities. Hence, the experimental quantity is to be compared directly with atomistic kinetic models. The experimental data are briefly reviewed. A class of atomistic models, those based on the Wirtz theory, is shown to be incompatible with the requirements of the thermodynamics of irreversible processes. Such compatibility is demonstrated for the zero-field model involving phonon and electron scattering by the activated complex, and the ideas underlying this model are reviewed.