Electrical resistivity of dislocations in metals

An analysis is presented of the sample dependence of the specific dislocation resistivity rho _D/N_D of metals. In contrast to the usual assumption, rho _D/N_D is not taken to be independent of the dislocation density N_D present in the sample. The N_D dependence of rho _D/N_D arises from the coupling between electron-dislocation scattering and electron-impurity scattering at low (liquid He) temperatures and from the coupling between electron-dislocation scattering and electron-phonon scattering at higher (liquid N₂) temperatures. The theory is applied to the extensive data available for rho _D/N_D for Al at 4.2K and at 80K and for Cu at 4.2K, for which conflicting values for rho _D/N_D have been reported by different workers. Good agreement is found between theory and experiment.