Thermoelectric power of the pure noble metals at low temperatures

Abstract

The authors have made measurements between 2K and 16K of the thermopower S of pure gold samples, with iron impurity removed by oxidation. When the main features of the observed temperature dependence of S in pure Au, Ag and Cu are interpreted as a change with temperature of the dominant electron scattering mechanism, the outstanding result is that S for the ideally pure metal is strongly negative below 10K.