Home > Encyclopedia of Science > Electrical Conductivity

• Electrical Resistance
• How conductance takes place
• Solution conductivity
• Semiconductivity and superconductivity

Electrical conductivity is the ability of a material to carry the flow of an electric current (a flow of electrons). Imagine that you attach the two ends of a battery to a bar of iron and a galvanometer. (A galvanometer is an instrument for measuring the flow of electric current.) When this connection is made, the galvanometer shows that electric current is flowing through the iron bar. The iron bar can be said to be a conductor of electric current.

Replacing the iron bar in this system with other materials produces different galvanometer readings. Other metals also conduct an electric current, but to different...