Phonon-limited electrical and thermal resistivities of noble metals

An investigation of the temperature variation of the phonon-limited electrical and thermal resistivity, and Lorentz number of noble metals (copper, silver, and gold) has been made theoretically on the basis of the recent Baym's formulation. A realistic approach is followed here to extract information about the dynamics of the ions by employing the improved Clark-Gazis-Wallis phenomenological scheme for the dynamical description of these cubic structures. Form factors of Bardeen, Borchi, and de Gennaro, and Moriarty are considered to account for the screened pseudopotential approximations for electron-ion scattering. Except for the results obtained with the Bardeen form factors, the results obtained with the remaining matrix elements are found to be in reasonably satisfactory agreement with experimental measurements. Agreement between the theory and experiment is particularly striking with the Moriarty pseudopotential form factors.