6 research outputs found
Dephasing of Electrons in Mesoscopic Metal Wires
We have extracted the phase coherence time of electronic
quasiparticles from the low field magnetoresistance of weakly disordered wires
made of silver, copper and gold. In samples fabricated using our purest silver
and gold sources, increases as when the temperature
is reduced, as predicted by the theory of electron-electron interactions in
diffusive wires. In contrast, samples made of a silver source material of
lesser purity or of copper exhibit an apparent saturation of
starting between 0.1 and 1 K down to our base temperature of 40 mK. By
implanting manganese impurities in silver wires, we show that even a minute
concentration of magnetic impurities having a small Kondo temperature can lead
to a quasi saturation of over a broad temperature range, while
the resistance increase expected from the Kondo effect remains hidden by a
large background. We also measured the conductance of Aharonov-Bohm rings
fabricated using a very pure copper source and found that the amplitude of the
conductance oscillations increases strongly with magnetic field. This set
of experiments suggests that the frequently observed ``saturation'' of
in weakly disordered metallic thin films can be attributed to
spin-flip scattering from extremely dilute magnetic impurities, at a level
undetectable by other means.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, to be published in Physical Review
Direct demonstration of circulating currents in a controllable -SQUID generated by a 0 to transition of the weak links
A controllable -SQUID is a DC SQUID with two controllable
-junctions as weak links. A controllable -junction consists of a
superconducting - normal metal - superconducting Josephson junction with two
additional contacts to the normal region of the junction. By applying a voltage
over these contacts it is possible to control the sate of the junction,
i.e. a conventional (0) state or a -state, depending on the magnitude of
. We demonstrate experimentally that, by putting one junction into a
-state, a screening current is generated around the SQUID loop at integer
external flux. To be able to do this, we have fabricated controllable
-junctions, based on Cu-Nb or Ag-Nb, in a new geometry. We show that at
1.4 K only the Nb-Ag device shows the transition to a -state as a function
of consistent with theoretical predictions. In a controllable SQUID
based on Nb-Ag we observe, a part from a screening current at integer external
flux, a phase shift of of the oscillations under suitable
current bias, depending on the magnitude of .Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures, subm. to Phys. Rev.
Effect of Nyquist Noise on the Nyquist Dephasing Rate in 2d Electron Systems
We measure the effect of externally applied broadband Nyquist noise on the
intrinsic Nyquist dephasing rate of electrons in a two-dimensional electron gas
at low temperatures. Within the measurement error, the phase coherence time is
unaffected by the externally applied Nyquist noise, including applied noise
temperatures of up to 300 K. The amplitude of the applied Nyquist noise from
100 MHz to 10 GHz is quantitatively determined in the same experiment using a
microwave network analyzer.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Author affiliation clarified; acknowledgements
modified. Replacement reason clarifie
Inelastic Scattering Time for Conductance Fluctuations
We revisit the problem of inelastic times governing the temperature behavior
of the weak localization correction and mesoscopic fluctuations in one- and
two-dimensional systems. It is shown that, for dephasing by the electron
electron interaction, not only are those times identical but the scaling
functions are also the same.Comment: 10 pages Revtex; 5 eps files include
Electron Dephasing in Mesoscopic Metal Wires
The low-temperature behavior of the electron phase coherence time,
, in mesoscopic metal wires has been a subject of controversy
recently. Whereas theory predicts that in narrow wires should
increase as as the temperature is lowered, many samples exhibit
a saturation of below about 1 K. We review here the experiments
we have performed recently to address this issue. In particular we emphasize
that in sufficiently pure Ag and Au samples we observe no saturation of
down to our base temperature of 40 mK. In addition, the measured
magnitude of is in excellent quantitative agreement with the
prediction of the perturbative theory of Altshuler, Aronov and Khmelnitskii. We
discuss possible explanations why saturation of is observed in
many other samples measured in our laboratory and elsewhere, and answer the
criticisms raised recently by Mohanty and Webb regarding our work.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures; to appear in proceedings of conference
"Fundamental Problems of Mesoscopic Physics", Granada, Spain, 6-11 September,
200
Negative Magnetoresistance in Silicon Doped AlAs-GaAs Short Period Superlattices
We report the negative magnetoresistance effect observed in GaAs-AlAs short period superlattices doped selectively in GaAs or in AlAs or doped uniformly. This doping technique introduces deep donor states with different thermal activation energies. Consequently, the low temperature electron concentration is different in samples doped at the same silicon concentration. We find the magnetic correction to the conductivity increasing with the free carrier density. The low magnetic field data are interpreted in the framework of a weak localization model derived from the Kawabata theory in 3D anisotropic systems. The theory of effective mass in superlattices is applied and we find that the inelastic scattering time does not depend on the doping modulation.Nous présentons des résultats de magnétorésistance négative obtenus avec des superréseaux à courte période de GaAs-AlAs dopés au silicium sélectivement dans GaAs ou AlAs et uniformément dopés. Ce type de dopage permet d'introduire des niveaux donneurs d'énergie d'activation thermique différents. Ceci permet d'obtenir à basse température des concentrations d'électrons différentes à partir d'une concentration initiale de dopant identique pour tous les échantillons. Nous mettons ainsi en évidence une correction magnétique à la conductivité qui augmente avec la densité de porteurs libres. Les mesures à faible champ sont interprétées en termes de faible localisation à partir du modèle de Kawabata 3D dans lequel l'anisotropie de masse effective du superréseau est introduite. Nous trouvons que le temps de diffusion inélastique ne dépend pas de la modulation de dopage