Abstract

We analyse the thickness and temperature dependence of the resistivity for several gold films on mica reported by Sambles, Elsom and Jarvis (SEJ: Sambles J R, Elsom K C and Jarvis J D 1982 Phil. Trans. R. Sec. A 304 365). Data analysis proceeds according to an iteration procedure proposed recently (Munoz R C, Concha A, Mora F, Espejo R, Vidal G, Mulsow M, Arenas C, Kremer G, Moraga L, Esparza R and Haberle P 2000 Phys. Rei: B 61 4514; Munoz R C, Vidal G, Kremer G, Moraga L, Arenas C and Concha A 2000 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 12 2903), that permits the calculation of the temperature-dependent bulk conductivity sigma(0)(T) from the parameters delta (r.m.s. roughness amplitude) and xi (lateral correlation length) that describe the surface roughness. To assess the influence of the theoretical modelling of the electron-surface scattering, we use the theory of Tesanovic, Jaric and Maekawa (TJM), the theory of Trivedi and Aschroft (TA) and the modified theory of Sheng, Xing and Wang (mSXW). With the parameters delta and xi measured for a 70 nm Sold film deposited on mica, under similar conditions of evaporation, all three models reproduce approximately the thickness and temperature dependence of the resistivity (between 4 K and 300 K) of the SEJ films without using any adjustable parameter Agreement between theory and experiment improves according to the sequence TJM, TA, mSXW.