Geometry dependent dephasing in small metallic wires

Temperature dependent weak localization is measured in metallic nanowires in a previously unexplored size regime down to width $w=5$ nm. The dephasing time, $\tau_{\phi}$, shows a low temperature $T$ dependence close to quasi-1D theoretical expectations ($\tau_{\phi} \sim T^{-2/3}$) in the narrowest wires, but exhibits a relative saturation as $T \to 0$ for wide samples of the same material, as observed previously. As only sample geometry is varied to exhibit both suppression and divergence of $\tau_{\phi}$, this finding provides a new constraint on models of dephasing phenomena.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Electron dephasing near zero temperature: an experimental review

The behavior of the electron dephasing time near zero temperature, $\tau_\phi^0$, has recently attracted vigorous attention. This renewed interest is primarily concerned with whether $\tau_\phi^0$ should reach a finite or an infinite value as $T \to$ 0. While it is accepted that $\tau_\phi^0$ should diverge if there exists only electron-electron (electron-phonon) scattering, several recent measurements have found that $\tau_\phi^0$ depends only very weakly on temperature, if at all, when $T$ is sufficiently low. This article discusses the current experimental status of "the saturation problem", and concludes that the origin(s) for this widely observed saturation are still unresolved

Dephasing of Electrons by Two-Level Defects in Quantum Dots

The electron dephasing time $\tau_{\phi}$ in a diffusive quantum dot is calculated by considering the interaction between the electron and dynamical defects, modelled as two-level system. Using the standard tunneling model of glasses, we obtain a linear temperature dependence of $1/\tau_{\phi}$, consistent with the experimental observation. However, we find that, in order to obtain dephasing times on the order of nanoseconds, the number of two-level defects needs to be substantially larger than the typical concentration in glasses. We also find a finite system-size dependence of $\tau_{\phi}$, which can be used to probe the effectiveness of surface-aggregated defects.Comment: two-column 9 page

Magnetic field effects in energy relaxation mediated by Kondo impurities

We study the energy distribution function of quasiparticles in voltage biased mesoscopic wires in presence of magnetic impurities and applied magnetic field. The system is described by a Boltzmann equation where the collision integral is determined by coupling to spin 1/2 impurities. We derive an effective coupling to a dissipative spin system which is valid well above Kondo temperature in equilibrium or for sufficiently smeared distribution functions in non-equilibrium. For low magnetic field an enhancement of energy relaxation is found whereas for larger magnetic fields the energy relaxation decreases again meeting qualitatively the experimental findings by Anthore et al. (cond-mat/0109297). This gives a strong indication that magnetic impurities are in fact responsible for the enhanced energy relaxation in copper wires. The quantitative comparison, however, shows strong deviations for energy relaxation with small energy transfer whereas the large energy transfer regime is in agreement with our findings.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure

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, $\tau_{\phi}$, in mesoscopic metal wires has been a subject of controversy recently. Whereas theory predicts that $\tau_{\phi}(T)$ in narrow wires should increase as $T^{-2/3}$ as the temperature $T$ is lowered, many samples exhibit a saturation of $\tau_{\phi}$ 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 $\tau_{\phi}$ down to our base temperature of 40 mK. In addition, the measured magnitude of $\tau_{\phi}$ is in excellent quantitative agreement with the prediction of the perturbative theory of Altshuler, Aronov and Khmelnitskii. We discuss possible explanations why saturation of $\tau_{\phi}$ 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

Kondo Effect on Mesoscopic Scale (Review)

Following the discovery of the Kondo effect the bulk transport and magnetic behavior of the dilute magnetic alloys have been successfully described. In the last fifteen years new directions have been developed as the study of the systems of reduced dimensions and the artificial atoms so called quantum dots. In this review the first subject is reviewed starting with the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) study of a single magnetic impurity. The next subject is the reduction of the amplitude of the Kondo effect in samples of reduced dimension which was explained by the surface magnetic anisotropy which blocks the motion of the integer spin nearby the surface. The electron dephasing and energy relaxation experiments are discussed with the possible explanation including the surface anisotropy, where the situation in cases of integer and half-integer spins is very different. Finally, the present situation of the theory of dynamical structural defects is briefly presented which may lead to two-channel Kondo behavior.Comment: 8 pages, submitted to the JPSJ Special Issue "Kondo effect -- 40 years after the Discovery

Continuous Functions Modeling with Artificial Neural Network: An Improvement Technique to Feed the Input-Output Mapping

The artificial neural network is one of the interesting techniques that have been advantageously used to deal with modeling problems. In this study, the computing with artificial neural network (CANN) is proposed. The model is applied to modulate the information processing of one-dimensional task. We aim to integrate a new method which is based on a new coding approach of generating the input-output mapping. The latter is based on increasing the neuron unit in the last layer. Accordingly, to show the efficiency of the approach under study, a comparison is made between the proposed method of generating the input-output set and the conventional method. The results illustrated that the increasing of the neuron units, in the last layer, allows to find the optimal network’s parameters that fit with the mapping data. Moreover, it permits to decrease the training time, during the computation process, which avoids the use of computers with high memory usage