Eur. Phys. J. B (2017) 90: 151
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2017-80367-1

Regular Article

Conditions for T² resistivity from electron-electron scattering

¹ Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9530, USA
² Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5050, USA

^a e-mail: swift@physics.ucsb.edu

Received: 19 May 2017
Received in final form: 22 June 2017
Published online: 9 August 2017

Abstract

Many complex oxides (including titanates, nickelates and cuprates) show a regime in which resistivity follows a power law in temperature (ρ ∝ T²). By analogy to a similar phenomenon observed in some metals at low temperature, this has often been attributed to electron-electron (Baber) scattering. We show that Baber scattering results in a T² power law only under several crucial assumptions which may not hold for complex oxides. We illustrate this with sodium metal (ρ_el−el ∝ T²) and strontium titanate (ρ_el−el T²). We conclude that an observation of ρ ∝T² is not always sufficient evidence for electron-electron scattering.