Abstract
We have measured a diamagnetic persistent current with flux periodicities of both and in an array of thirty diffusive mesoscopic gold rings. At the lowest temperatures, the magnitudes of the currents per ring corresponding to the - and -periodic responses are both comparable to the Thouless energy , where 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 .
- Received 9 December 1999
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.1594
©2001 American Physical Society