Periodicity of the Aharonov-Bohm effect in normal-metal rings

Abstract

We study the Aharonov-Bohm effect in single normal-metal rings and show that averaging the conductance over many energies is equivalent to ensemble averaging. Thus raising the temperature T above a crossover Tc changes the flux periodicity of magnetoresistance oscillations from h/e to h/2e. Tc is determined by an energy correlation range, hD/L2. The persistence of the h/e oscillations to high fields is explained. © 1986 The American Physical Society.