Investigation of low-temperature electron relaxation by zero sound attenuation

✍ Scribed by E. V. Bezuglyi; N. G. Burma; E. Yu. Deyneka; A. I. Kopeliovich; V. D. Fil′

• Book ID: 104629359
• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 865 KB
• Volume: 91
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-2291
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00120848

✦ Synopsis

We develop a new method of investigation of low-temperature electron relaxation in metals, based on the analysis of the temperature dependences of the attenuation of zero sound excited by ultrasonic pulses. We have discovered that these dependences obtained in the temperature region about of 1-8 K reproduce directly the temperature behavior of the electron scattering rate. The main features of our method are its insensitivity to small-angle scattering and the additivity of contributions of various relaxation processes to the total scattering rate. Both the theoretical analysis of zero-sound propagation in various damping regimes and special experiments produced for gallium confirm the validity of our consideration. We have identified the considerable contribution of electron-electron collisions in all investigated metals (gallium, aluminum, molybdenum, and tungsten) in the whole studied temperature interval and established the dominating role of Umklapp processes in the zero-sound damping at T > -4 K for gallium and most probably for tungsten. We interpret the latter result as the first experimental observation of Peierls' exponent in polyvalent metals in zero magnetic field. The values obtained for electron-electron and electron-phonon scattering rates are compared with known experimental data and theoretical estimations.