We measured the electrical resistivity of high purity Zn along the melting boundary, up to 5 GPa in a large volume press. The electrical resistivity remained constant on the melting boundary, as predicted in a thermodynamics-based model for simple metals. The effects of pressure and temperature on the electrical resistivity of the solid and liquid states are interpreted in terms of their antagonistic effects on the electronic structure of Zn. Within the error of measurements, our melting temperature data agree well with those of the previous studies. The electronic thermal conductivity was calculated from resistivity data using the Wiedemann–Franz law and shows a decrease with temperature in the solid state and an increase in the liquid state, with a large decrease on melting. Comparison of calculated electronic and measured total thermal conductivities indicates that the electronic component dominates over the phonon component in Zn.

The electrical resistivity and thermal conductivity behavior of Fe at core conditions are important for understanding planetary interior thermal evolution as well as characterizing the generation and sustainability of planetary dynamos. We discuss the electrical resistivity and thermal conductivity of Fe, Co, and Ni at the solid–liquid melting transition using experimental data from previous studies at 1 atm and at high pressures. With increasing pressure, the increasing difference in the change in resistivity of these metals on melting is interpreted as due to decreasing paramagnon-induced electronic scattering contribution to the total electronic scattering. At the melting transition of Fe, we show that the difference in the value of the thermal conductivity on the solid and liquid sides increases with increasing pressure. At a pure Fe inner core boundary of Mercury and Ganymede at ~5 GPa and ~9 GPa, respectively, our analyses suggest that the thermal conductivity of the solid inner core of small terrestrial planetary bodies should be higher than that of the liquid outer core. We found that the thermal conductivity difference on the solid and liquid sides of Mercury’s inner core boundary is ~2 W(mK)⁻¹. This translates into an excess of total adiabatic heat flow of ~0.01–0.02 TW on the inner core side, depending on the relative size of inner and outer core. For a pure Fe Ganymede inner core, the difference in thermal conductivity is ~7 W(mK)⁻¹, corresponding to an excess of total adiabatic heat flow of ~0.02 TW on the inner core side of the boundary. The mismatch in conducted heat across the solid and liquid sides of the inner core boundary in both planetary bodies appears to be insignificant in terms of generating thermal convection in their outer cores to power an internal dynamo suggesting that chemical composition is important.

The electrical resistivity of solid and liquid Cu and Au were measured at high pressures from 6 up to 12 GPa and temperatures ∼150 K above melting. The resistivity of the metals was also measured as a function of pressure at room temperature. Their resistivity decreased and increased with increasing pressure and temperature, respectively. With increasing pressure at room temperature, we observed a sharp reduction in the magnitude of resistivity at ∼4 GPa in both metals. In comparison with 1 atm data and relatively lower pressure data from previous studies, our measured temperature-dependent resistivity in the solid and liquid states show a similar trend. The observed melting temperatures at various fixed pressure are in reasonable agreement with previous experimental and theoretical studies. Along the melting curve, the present study found the resistivity to be constant within the range of our investigated pressure (6–12 GPa) in agreement with the theoretical prediction. Our results indicate that the invariant resistivity theory could apply to the simple metals but at higher pressure above 5 GPa. These results were discussed in terms of the saturation of the dominant nuclear screening effect caused by the increasing difference in energy level between the Fermi level and the d-band with increasing pressure.