This departure from the usual formula only applies for materials of rather low conductivity and

at frequencies where the vacuum wavelength is not much larger than the skin depth itself. For
instance, bulk silicon (undoped) is a poor conductor and has a skin depth of about 40 meters at
100 kHz (λ = 3000 m). However, as the frequency is increased well into the megahertz range, its
skin depth never falls below the asymptotic value of 11 meters. The conclusion is that in poor
solid conductors such as undoped silicon, the skin effect doesn't need to be taken into account in
most practical situations: any current is equally distributed throughout the material's cross-
section regardless of its frequency.

Current density in a round conductor

When the skin depth is not small with respect to the radius of the wire, current density may be
described in terms of Bessel functions. The current density inside round wire away from the
influences of other fields, as function of distance from the axis is given by:[6]:38

Current density in round wire for various skin depths. Numbers shown on each curve are the
ratio of skin depth to wire radius. The curve shown with the infinity sign is the zero frequency
(DC) case. All curves are normalized so that the current density at the surface is the same. The
horizontal axis is the position within the wire with the left and right extremes being the surface
of the wire. The vertical axis is relative current density.

where

= angular frequency of current = 2π × frequency

distance from the axis of the wire
radius of the wire
current density phasor at distance, r, from the axis of the wire
current density phasor at the surface of the wire
total current phasor
Bessel function of the first kind, order 0
Bessel function of the first kind, order 1
the wave number in the conductor
 also called skin depth.
= resistivity of the conductor
= relative magnetic permeability of the conductor
= the permeability of free space = 4π x 10−7 H/m
=
Since is complex, the Bessel functions are also complex. The amplitude and phase of the current
density varies with depth.

Impedance of round wire

The internal impedance per unit length of a segment of round wire is given by:[6]:40

This impedance is a complex quantity corresponding to a resistance (real) in series with the
reactance (imaginary) due to the wire's internal self-inductance, per unit length.

Inductance

A portion of a wire's inductance can be attributed to the magnetic field inside the wire itself
which is termed the internal inductance; this accounts for the inductive reactance (imaginary part
of the impedance) given by the above formula. In most cases this is a small portion of a wire's
inductance which includes the effect of induction from magnetic fields outside of the wire
produced by the current in the wire. Unlike that external inductance, the internal inductance is
reduced by the skin effect, that is, at frequencies where the skin depth is no longer large
compared to the conductor's size. [7] This small component of inductance approaches a value of at
low frequencies, regardless of the wire's radius. Its reduction with increasing frequency, as the
ratio of the skin depth to the wire's radius falls below about 1, is plotted in the accompanying
graph, and accounts for the reduction in the telephone cable inductance with increasing
frequency in the table below.
The internal component of a round wire's inductance vs. the ratio of skin depth to radius. That
component of the self inductance is reduced below μ / 8π as the skin depth becomes small (as
frequency increases).

The ratio AC resistance to DC resistance of a round wire versus the ratio of the wire’s radius to
the skin depth. As the skin depth becomes small relative to the radius, the ratio of AC to DC
resistance approaches one half of the ratio of the radius to the skin depth.

Resistance

The most important effect of the skin effect on the impedance of a single wire, however, is the
increase of the wire's resistance, and consequent losses. The effective resistance due to a current
confined near the surface of a large conductor (much thicker than δ) can be solved as if the
current flowed uniformly through a layer of thickness δ based on the DC resistivity of that
material. The effective cross-sectional area is approximately equal to δ times the conductor's
circumference. Thus a long cylindrical conductor such as a wire, having a diameter D large
compared to δ, has a resistance approximately that of a hollow tube with wall thickness δ
carrying direct current. The AC resistance of a wire of length L and resistivity is:

The final approximation above assumes .

A convenient formula (attributed to F.E. Terman) for the diameter DW of a wire of circular cross-
section whose resistance will increase by 10% at frequency f is:[8]

This formula for the increase in AC resistance is accurate only for an isolated wire. For nearby
wires, e.g. in a cable or a coil, the AC resistance is also affected by proximity effect, which can
cause an additional increase in the AC resistance.