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dorkvader
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Mar 13, 2014
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NOBODY
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Mar 13, 2014
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dorkvader@dorkvader Gold is used on the contacts for most connectors, not because it has a lower electrical resistivity (22.14 nΩ·m @ 20 °C), since it is beat by copper (16.78 nΩ·m) and silver (15.87 nΩ·m) that have the greatest electrical conductivities of any element, but because unlike most metals it does not corrode to common substances (i.e. oils on your fingers) nor tarnish when exposed to oxygen or water (both of which copper and silver react to unless pure). Gold does have the additional benefits of being both very soft and dense which allows VERY thin layers (as low as a few atoms thick) to be used in the form of gold plating, while consuming only an EXTREMELY small amount of gold in the process (think hundreds if not thousands of different connectors plated with only a pea size amount of gold), thus being very cheap in terms of resources. With how thin the gold plating layers are, the higher resistivity has a negligible affect on a circuit's electrical conductivity when there are normally other components that create far greater issues (i.e. inconsistency between resistors, capacitors, inductors, etc that are supposed to be a certain rating). Thus the benefits of gold plating copper/silver greatly outweigh the minimal disadvantages.
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I would suspect that some manufacturers use gold-plated contacts because they make a better (lower resistance) connection, but there are clearly multiple benefits.