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.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9710095,
title = {Intrinsic Decoherence in Mesoscopic Systems},
author = {P. Mohanty and E. M. Q. Jariwala and R. A. Webb},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9710095},
year = {2009}
}