Thermal conductivity of copper and german silver at liquid helium temperatures

Abstract

A method is described for measuring thermal conductivities of metals at liquid helium temperatures. It is shown that the method of determining the temperature gradient by directly measuring the temperature at two points along a rod is probably free from systematic error, but that the end of a heated rod in direct contact with a helium bath is not at the temperature of the surface of the bath, even in the He ii region. A description is also given of a technique for using mercury as a low-temperature solder, tight to He ii. The results for copper are in reasonable agreement with Makinson's theory of metallic conduction. Tentative extrapolation to very low temperatures in the presence of fairly large magnetic fields shows that pure copper is a reasonably good material for thermal transfer in demagnetization experiments. The results for german silver seem to indicate that only the lattice conductivity is important since it follows a T3 law, and that scattering takes place with a mean free path of the order of 10−3 cm.