Localization of electrons in thin antimony films
Abstract
The low temperature corrections to the conductivity of thin antimony fllms, related to localization of electronic states, are measured at helium and hydrogen temperatures in fields of up to 17 kOe parallel and perpendicular to the plane of the films. Analysis of the magnetic field and temperature dependences of the quantities Δσ for the films with different thicknesses showed that they agree well with the theory developed by Al’tshuler, Aronov, Larkin, and Khmel’nitskii, which made it possible to determine the inelastic relaxation time τφ and to fmd the dependence of τφ on the temperature and thickness of the films. The observed weak contribution of the negative magnetoresistance permitted estimating the magnitude of the characteristic spinorbit interaction time in the presence of impurity scattering σso.