DEPHASING IN PRESENCE OF A MAGNETIC FIELD.

Effect of the magnetic field on the rate of phase breaking is studied. It is shown that the magnetic field resulting in the decrease of phase relaxation rate $\tau_{\phi}^{-1}$ makes the negative magnetoresistance due to suppression of the electron interference to be smoother in shape and lower in magnitude than that found with constant $\tau_{\phi}^{-1}$-value. Nevertheless our analysis shows that experimental magnetoconductance curves can be well fitted by the Hikami–Larkin–Nagaoka expression.¹ The fitting procedure gives the value of τ/τ_ϕ, where τ is the quasi-momentum relaxation time, which is close to the value of τ/τ_ϕ(B = 0) with an accuracy of 25% or better when the temperature varies within the range from 0.4 to 10 K. The value of the prefactor α found from this procedure lies within the interval 0.9–1.2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]