Resistivity table / chart

- table or chart of the resistivity of a variety of materials many of which are used in electronics equipment.

Resistance & resistivity pages include:

    •  Resistivity basics
    •  Resistivity table
    •  Resistance temperature coefficient
    •  Electrical conductivity

The resistivity table given below contains many of the substances widely used in electronics.

These two properties are particularly important and will often determine whether a substance can be used in the manufacture of a wide variety of electrical and electronics components from wire to components such as resistors, potentiometers and many more.

Many of the materials found in the resistivity table above are widely used in electronics. Aluminium and particularly copper are used for their low levels of resistance. Most wire used these days for interconnections is made from copper as it offers a low level of resistivity at an acceptable cost. Gold while much better is more costly and is used in much smaller quantities. Often gold plating is found on high quality low current connectors where it ensures the lowest contact resistance. Silver is not so widely used because it tarnishes and this can result in higher contact resistances. The oxide can also under some circumstances act as a rectifier which may cause some annoying problems in RF circuits.

Tantalum also appears in the resistivity table. It is used in capacitors, and nickel and palladium are used in the end connections for many surface mount components such as capacitors. Quartz finds its main use as a piezo-electric resonant element. Quartz crystals are sued as frequency determining elements in many oscillators where its high value of Q enables very frequency stable circuits to be made. They are similarly used in high performance filters.

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