Effect of annealing on electron dephasing in three-dimensional polycrystalline metals

We have studied the effect of thermal annealing on electron dephasing times ${\tau }_{\varphi }$ in three-dimensional polycrystalline metals. Measurements are performed on as-sputtered and annealed AuPd and Sb thick films, using weak-localization method. In all samples, we find that ${\tau }_{\varphi }$ possesses an extremely weak temperature dependence as $T\to 0$. Our results show that the effect of annealing is non-universal, and it depends strongly on the amount of disorder quenched in the microstructures during deposition. The observed “saturation” behavior of ${\tau }_{\varphi }$ cannot be easily explained by magnetic scattering. We suggest that the issue of saturation can be better addressed in three-dimensional, rather than lower-dimensional, structures.