THE LINEAR TEMPERATURE BEHAVIOR OF RESISTMTY AND OXYGEN STOICHIOMETRY IN YBa₂Cu₃O_7-x

By employing a gettered annealing technique, we studied the relationship between the resistivity ρ(x, T) (20°C≤ T≤ 30°C) and oxygen content in the high-T_c superconductor YBa₂Cu₃O_7-x. ρ(x, T) is approximately linear for 0.0≤ x ≤0.6, and both the slope dρ/dT and the residual resistivity increase continuously decreasing oxygen content. A qualitative analysis is given.