Contact resistance calculations: Generalizations of Greenwood's formula including interface films

The calculation of the contact resistance between two rough electrodes is a difficult task, since the contact interface comprises many spots correspon ding to more or less conducting paths for the electrons. The present paper starts with an analytical formula derived by J. A. Greenwood to End the ele ctrical resistance of a cluster of perfect circular microcontacts. It is fi rst shown that Greenwood's formula can be used to derive known and new form ulas for the constriction resistance of single spots of various shapes. The n we consider the case where the microcontacts are not perfect, and charact erize each microcontact by a fdm resistance. To generalize Greenwood's form ula, we use an intermediate expression derived by this author, and substitu te for the constriction resistance term of each spot, a term comprising the constriction resistance and the film resistance. We then test the formulas proposed in the paper. In all situations the electrical contact area is mo deled by means of a set of square spots. At first, we consider experimental results concerning long rectangular spots. Then, we consider numerical res ults concerning square ring-shaped spots. And lastly, we consider the case where two large electrodes communicate through two concentric thin flat rin gs of variable conductivity. The contact resistance is then calculated usin g Greenwood's generalized formula and by means of the finite-element method . All tests are passed satisfactorily.