Cold Landscape Lab

Ride the thermometer from ambient to −190 °C and watch two archetypes diverge: a metal’s resistance falls as phonons freeze out; a semiconductor’s climbs as carriers freeze onto their donors.

Temperature20 °C
Metal R rel.
Semiconductor R rel.
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20 °C

Schematic archetypes: metallic R ∝ a + bT (phonon term shrinking on cooling) and a semiconductor with carrier freeze-out R ∝ eE/2kT-like rise — teaching curves with illustrative parameters, not data for any real material. Real R(T) fine structure (transitions, plateaus, hopping curvature) is the science; the measurement craft lives in the electrical chapters.