Crystallinity and electron transport

[Hyo X]

Say we have an electron traveleing in a crystalline conductor. It can scatter off of defects such as vacancies, interstitial atoms, grain boundaries, etc.

Is there a way to quantify the relationship between conductance and defect density?

I.e., if I want to build a 2D crystalline conductor, how will 0.5% volume of defects affect transport vs 5% of volume defects?

 

[M Quack]

Yes, electrons get scattered on defects. At high temperatures scattering from thermally excited phonons is dominant. At low temperatures, close to absolute zero, however, defects are usually dominant.

A way to measure this is to look at the residual resistance ratio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual-resistance_ratio

I do not know if there is any way to obtain absolute numbers for defect density. For that x-ray diffraction topography is better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_topography