Intrinsic Decoherence in Mesoscopic Systems

الأصل · EN

We present measurements of the phase coherence time τϕ in six quasi-1D Au wires and clearly show that τϕ is temperature independent at low temperatures. We suggest that zero-point fluctuations of the intrinsic electromagnetic environment are responsible for the observed saturation of τϕ. We introduce a new functional form for the temperature dependence and present the results of a calculation for the saturation value of τϕ. This explains the observed temperature dependence of our samples as well as many 1D and 2D systems reported to date.