Surface roughness and surface-induced resistivity of gold films on mica: influence of the theoretical modelling of electron-surface scattering

We analyse the thickness and temperature dependence of the resistivity for several gold films on mica reported by Sambles, Elsom and Jarvis (SEJ: Samb les J R, Elsom K C and Jarvis J D 1982 Phil. Trans. R. Sec. A 304 365). Dat a analysis proceeds according to an iteration procedure proposed recently ( Munoz R C, Concha A, Mora F, Espejo R, Vidal G, Mulsow M, Arenas C, Kremer G, Moraga L, Esparza R and Haberle P 2000 Phys. Rei: B 61 4514; Munoz R C, Vidal G, Kremer G, Moraga L, Arenas C and Concha A 2000 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 12 2903), that permits the calculation of the temperature-dependent bulk conductivity sigma(0)(T) from the parameters delta (r.m.s. roughness a mplitude) and xi (lateral correlation length) that describe the surface rou ghness. To assess the influence of the theoretical modelling of the electro n-surface scattering, we use the theory of Tesanovic, Jaric and Maekawa (TJ M), the theory of Trivedi and Aschroft (TA) and the modified theory of Shen g, Xing and Wang (mSXW). With the parameters delta and xi measured for a 70 nm Sold film deposited on mica, under similar conditions of evaporation, a ll three models reproduce approximately the thickness and temperature depen dence of the resistivity (between 4 K and 300 K) of the SEJ films without u sing any adjustable parameter Agreement between theory and experiment impro ves according to the sequence TJM, TA, mSXW.