Thermal conductivity electrons. In this case the mean velocity is the Fermi velocity which is temperature independent. The mean free path is determined by the impurities and the crystal imperfections which are temperature independent as well. So the only temperature-dependent quantity is the heat capacity "c", which, in this case, is proportional to "T". So with "k" a constant. For pure metals such as copper, silver, etc. "l" is large, so the thermal conductivity is high. At higher temperatures the mean free path is limited by the phonons, so the thermal conductivity tends to decrease with temperature. In alloys the density of
Thermal conductivity is rather insensitive to the energy distribution of carriers because the amount of charge that electrons carry, does not depend on their energy. This is a physical reason for the greater sensitivity of electronic thermal conductivity to energy dependence of density of states and relaxation time, respectively. Mahan and Sofo showed that materials with a certain electron structure have reduced electron thermal conductivity. Based on their analysis one can demonstrate that if the electron density of states in the material is close to the delta-function, the electronic thermal conductivity drops to zero. By taking the following equation formula_52, where λ