Thermal conductivity heat flow may not be exactly the same as the direction of the thermal gradient. In metals, thermal conductivity approximately tracks electrical conductivity according to the Wiedemann–Franz law, as freely moving valence electrons transfer not only electric current but also heat energy. However, the general correlation between electrical and thermal conductance does not hold for other materials, due to the increased importance of phonon carriers for heat in non-metals. Highly electrically conductive silver is less thermally conductive than diamond, which is an electrical insulator, but due to its orderly array of atoms it is conductive of heat via phonons. The
Thermal conductivity thermal conductivity, which is its reciprocal, is frequently given in specific units of formula_8. It is therefore often-times necessary to convert between absolute and specific units, by also taking a component's physical dimensions into consideration, in order to correlate the two using information provided, or to convert tabulated values of material thermal conductivity into absolute thermal resistance values for use in thermal resistance calculations. This is particularly useful, for example, when calculating the maximum power a component can dissipate as heat, as demonstrated in the example calculation here. "Thermal conductivity λ is defined as ability of material to transmit heat