Magnetomechanics of mesoscopic wires

Electron Dephasing in Mesoscopic Metal Wires

The low-temperature behavior of the electron phase coherence time, τφ, in mesoscopic metal wires has been a subject of controversy recently. Whereas theory predicts that τφ(T ) in narrow wires should increase as T as the temperature T is lowered, many samples exhibit a saturation of τφ below about 1 K. We review here the experiments we have performed recently to address this issue. In particula...

Low temperature anomaly in mesoscopic kondo wires

We report the observation of an anomalous magnetoresistance in extremely dilute quasi-one-dimensional AuFe wires at low temperatures, along with a hysteretic background at low fields. The Kondo resistivity does not show the unitarity limit down to the lowest temperature, implying uncompensated spin states. We suggest that the anomalous magnetoresistance may be understood as the interference cor...

Shotnoise in Mesoscopic Diffusive Andreev Wires

We study shot noise in mesoscopic diffusive wires between a normal and a superconducting terminal. We particularly focus on the regime, in which the proximity-induced reentrance effect is important. We will examine the difference between a simple Boltzmann-Langevin description, which neglects induced correlations beyond the simple conductivity correction, and a full quantum calculation. In the ...

Size Dependent Thermopower in Mesoscopic AuFe Wires

We have combined electron heating experiments and noise thermometry to perform quantitative measurements of the thermopower in mesoscopic samples. This new measuring technique allows us to detect finite size effects in the thermopower of narrow AuFe wires with an Fe concentration ranging from 50 to 3000 ppm. The size effects emerge when reducing the width of the wires below .300 nm and may be r...

Mesoscopic fluctuations of Coulomb drag between quasiballistic one-dimensional wires