  The resistivity scaling of metals is a crucial limiting factor for further
downscaling of interconnects in nanoelectronic devices that affects signal
delay, heat production, and energy consumption. Here, we generalize a commonly
considered figure of merit for selecting promising candidate metals with highly
anisotropic Fermi surfaces in terms of their electronic transport properties at
the nanoscale. For this, we introduce a finite-temperature transport tensor,
based on band structures obtained from first principles. This transport tensor
allows for a straightforward comparison between highly anisotropic metals in
nanostructures with different lattice orientations and arbitrary transport
directions. By evaluating the temperature dependence of the tensor components,
we also assess the validity of a Fermi surface-based evaluation of the
transport properties at zero temperature, rather than considering standard
operating temperature conditions.
