{
  "id": "cond-mat/0401182",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2004-01-12T13:46:09.000Z",
  "updated": "2004-01-12T13:46:09.000Z",
  "title": "Electron Dephasing in Mesoscopic Metal Wires",
  "authors": [
    "Norman O. Birge",
    "F. Pierre"
  ],
  "comment": "14 pages, 3 figures; to appear in proceedings of conference \"Fundamental Problems of Mesoscopic Physics\", Granada, Spain, 6-11 September, 2003",
  "categories": [
    "cond-mat.mes-hall"
  ],
  "abstract": "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.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2004-01-12T13:46:09.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "mesoscopic metal wires",
      "electron dephasing",
      "electron phase coherence time",
      "saturation",
      "theory predicts"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "conference paper"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 14,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable",
      "adsabs": "2004fpmp.book....3B"
    }
  }
}