Diamagnetic persistent current in diffusive normal-metal rings

We have measured a diamagnetic persistent current with flux periodicities of both h/e and h/2e in an array of thirty diffusive mesoscopic gold rings. At the lowest temperatures, the magnitudes of the currents per ring corresponding to the h/e- and h/2e-periodic responses are both comparable to the T...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 86; no. 8; p. 1594
Main Authors Jariwala, E M, Mohanty, P, Ketchen, M B, Webb, R A
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 19.02.2001
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Summary:We have measured a diamagnetic persistent current with flux periodicities of both h/e and h/2e in an array of thirty diffusive mesoscopic gold rings. At the lowest temperatures, the magnitudes of the currents per ring corresponding to the h/e- and h/2e-periodic responses are both comparable to the Thouless energy E(c) identical with Planck's over 2pi/tau(D), where tau(D) is the diffusion time. Taken in conjunction with earlier experiments, our results strongly challenge the conventional theories of persistent current. We consider a new approach associated with the saturation of the phase coherence time tau(phi).
ISSN:0031-9007
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.1594