Conductor and resistor materials

Updated May 26, 2006

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If you need to know more about any specific material in this table, click on the material name. Our reference for this info mainly is the boulder.nist.gov web site. Please be sure to find a second reference on this data (preferably your material vendor) before you base a design on this data!

A variety of metals and alloys are used for conductors and resistors on printed circuit boards and thin-film networks. Thick film conductors are formed from pastes, and will be treated separately by Microwaves101 at a later date.

If you have any data we can add to this table, please send it in!

Material	Formula	Temperature coefficient of resistivity (TCR) (ppm/°C)	Bulk resistivity (-cm)	Melting point °C	Melting point °F
Aluminum	Al	4200	2.65	660	1221
Carbon	C	-500	3000
Chromium	Cr	5900	18	1857	3374.6
Copper	Cu	4300	1.673	1083	1981.4
Gold	Au	4000	2.44	1064	1947.2
Indium	In	5200	15.52	156.7	314
Iridium	Ir		5.3	2410	4370
Iron	Fe	6500	9.66	1535	2795
Lead	Pb	4200	20.65	328	622.4
Magnesium	Mg		4.2
Nickel	Ni	6800	8.707	1453	2647.4
Nichrome	Ni80/Cr20	4000	110
Palladium	Pd	4200	10.62	1552	2825.6
Platinum	Pt	3000	10.62	1768	3215
Rhodium	Rh		4.51	1966	3570.8
Silver	Ag	4100	1.59	962	1763.6
Tantalum	Ta		15.52	2996	5424.8
Tantalum nitride	TaN		252
Tin (white)	Sn	4600	11.55	232	449.6
Titanium	Ti		55	1660	3020
Tungsten	W	4800	5.6	3422	6192
Zinc	Zn	4200	5.68	420	788
Zirconium	Zr		4.1	1852	3365.6

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