Dimensional crossover in quantum networks: from macroscopic to mesoscopic Physics

• Main Authors: Schopfer, Félicien, Mallet, François, Mailly, Dominique, Texier, Christophe, Montambaux, Gilles, Bäuerle, Christopher, Saminadayar, Laurent
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 05-11-2006
• Subjects: Physics - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0611127

We report on magnetoconductance measurements of metallic networks of various
sizes ranging from 10 to $10^{6}$ plaquettes, with anisotropic aspect ratio.
Both Altshuler-Aronov-Spivak (AAS) $h/2e$ periodic oscillations and
Aharonov-Bohm (AB) $h/e$ periodic oscillations are observed for all networks.
For large samples, the amplitude of both oscillations results from the
incoherent superposition of contributions of phase coherent regions. When the
transverse size becomes smaller than the phase coherent length $L_\phi$, one
enters a new regime which is phase coherent (mesoscopic) along one direction
and macroscopic along the other, leading to a new size dependence of the
quantum oscillations.