The electron dephasing processes in two-dimensional homogeneous and inhomogeneous indium tin oxide thin films have been investigated in a wide temperature range 0.3--90 K. We found that the small-energy-transfer electron-electron (e-e) scattering process dominated the dephasing from a few K to several tens K. At higher temperatures, a crossover to the large-energy-transfer e-e scattering process was observed. Below about 1--2 K, the dephasing time τφ revealed a very weak temperature dependence, which intriguingly scaled approximately with the inverse of the electron diffusion constant D, i.e., τφ(T≈0.3K)∝1/D. Theoretical implications of our results are discussed. The reason why the electron-phonon relaxation rate is negligibly weak in this low-carrier-concentration material is presented.
@article{arxiv.1202.1627,
title = {Electron dephasing in homogeneous and inhomogeneous indium tin oxide thin films},
author = {Chih-Yuan Wu and Bo-Tsung Lin and Yu-Jie Zhang and Zhi-Qing Li and Juhn-Jong Lin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1202.1627},
year = {2012}
}