
6 The Circuit Designer’s Companion
1.1.3 The conductivity of aluminium
Aluminium is used throughout the electronics industry as a light, strong and highly
conductive chassis material
−
only silver, copper and gold have a higher conductivity.
You would expect an aluminium chassis to exhibit a decently low bulk resistance, and
so it does, and is very suitable as a conductive ground as a result. Unfortunately, another
property of aluminium (which is useful in other contexts) is that it oxidises very readily
on its surface, to the extent that all real-life samples of aluminium are covered by a thin
surface film of aluminium oxide (Al
2
O
3
). Aluminium ...