Some aspects of electrical conduction in granular systems of various dimensions

Mathieu Creyssels (1) , Stéphane Dorbolo (2) , Alexandre Merlen (1) , Claude Laroche (1) , Bertrand Castaing (1) , Éric Falcon (3)

1 Phys-ENS - Laboratoire de Physique de l'ENS Lyon
2 GRASP - Group for Research and Applications in Statistical Physics
3 MSC - Matière et Systèmes Complexes

We report on measurements of the electrical conductivity in both a 2D triangular lattice of metallic beads and in a chain of beads. The voltage/current characteristics are qualitatively similar in both experiments. At low applied current, the voltage is found to increase logarithmically in good agreement with a model of widely distributed resistances in series. At high enough current, the voltage saturates due to the local welding of microcontacts between beads. The frequency dependence of the saturation voltage gives an estimate of the size of these welded microcontacts. The DC value of the saturation voltage ( ≃ 0.4 V per contact) gives an indirect measure of the number of welded contact carrying the current within the 2D lattice. Also, a new measurement technique provides a map of the current paths within the 2D lattice of beads. For an isotropic compression of the 2D granular medium, the current paths are localized in few discrete linear paths. This quasi-onedimensional nature of the electrical conductivity thus explains the similarity between the characteristics in the 1D and 2D systems.

Domains: Soft Condensed Matter [cond-mat.soft]; Nonlinear Sciences [physics]

Mathieu Creyssels, Stéphane Dorbolo, Alexandre Merlen, Claude Laroche, Bertrand Castaing, et al.. Some aspects of electrical conduction in granular systems of various dimensions. European Physical Journal E: Soft matter and biological physics, 2007, 23, pp.255. ⟨10.1140/epje/i2006-10186-9⟩. ⟨hal-00170319v3⟩