The copper β silver β gold triangle in modern electronics
This work analyzes the use of copper, silver and gold as conductive materials from a physical, economic and systemic perspective, moving away from the simplistic comparison based solely on conductivity or price per gram.
The study proposes that these three metals form a functional triangle in modern electronics:
Copper represents the structural material of the technological system: abundant, cheap and sufficiently conductive for the mass transport of energy and signal.
Silver occupies an intermediate position, offering maximum electrical conductivity at the cost of lower chemical stability, making it suitable for controlled and high-frequency applications.
Gold acts as a reliability material, not because of its conductive superiority, but because of its chemical inertness, eliminating failure modes associated with corrosion and contact degradation.
The core of the analysis demonstrates that material selection in critical systems should not be evaluated by the cost of the metal, but by the total expected cost, defined as the sum of the material cost and the economic risk associated with system failure. Under this framework, gold is economically rational in applications where the cost of failure far exceeds the cost of plating.
Finally, the work explores scenarios of copper shortage, concluding that said shortage does not lead to a volumetric substitution for gold, but rather to an intensification of the use of gold in critical points, while reinforcing aluminum substitution, miniaturization and recycling strategies. Silver is consolidated as a compromise between performance and stability.
Overall, the study suggests that the future of electronics is not defined by the amount of metal used, but by the functional value per atom, where each metal plays a specific and irreplaceable role within the global technological system.