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Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 027204 (2007) [4 pages]

Universal Conductance Fluctuations in Epitaxial GaMnAs Ferromagnets: Dephasing by Structural and Spin Disorder

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L. Vila1, R. Giraud1, L. Thevenard1, A. Lemaître1, F. Pierre1, J. Dufouleur1, D. Mailly1, B. Barbara2, and G. Faini1
1Laboratoire de Photonique et de Nanostructures-CNRS, Route de Nozay, 91460 Marcoussis, France
2Laboratoire de Magnétisme Louis Néel-CNRS, BP166, 38042 Grenoble Cedex-09, France

Received 12 July 2006; published 12 January 2007

Mesoscopic transport measurements reveal a large effective phase coherence length in epitaxial GaMnAs ferromagnets, contrary to usual 3d-metal ferromagnets. Universal conductance fluctuations of single nanowires are compared for epilayers with a tailored anisotropy. At large magnetic fields, quantum interferences are due to structural disorder only, and an unusual behavior related to hole-induced ferromagnetism is evidenced, for both quantum interferences and decoherence. At small magnetic fields, phase coherence is shown to persist down to zero field, even in presence of magnons, and an additional spin disorder contribution to quantum interferences is observed under domain walls nucleation.

© 2007 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.027204
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.027204
PACS:
75.45.+j, 71.70.−d, 75.50.Lk