Electron Dephasing in Mesoscopic Metal Wires

Abstract

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

14 pages, 3 figures; to appear in proceedings of conference "Fundamental Problems of Mesoscopic Physics", Granada, Spain, 6-11 September, 2003