Mapping electromagnetic dualities via quantum decoherence measurements in 2D materials
The quantification of quantum phase coherence can reveal several properties of charge carriers in systems of given dimensionality, illuminating mechanisms leading to quantum decoherence due to inelastic scattering events, to decoherence mechanisms due to device geometry, and to dephasing due to geometrical phases from applied fields. Examples of several effects are presented. Quantum phase coherence lengths were measured in mesoscopic geometries by quantum transport methods including universal conductance fluctuations, weak-localization, and quantum interferometry. The geometries were fabricated from two-dimensional starting materials. In wires of materials with strong spin-orbit interaction, we show that spin decoherence due to spin-orbit interaction and dephasing due to applied magnetic fields show an electromagnetic duality. We show that dephasing due to applied magnetic fields can be expressed in terms of a magnetic length quantifying time-reversal symmetry breaking. In wires, the main orbital quantum decoherence mechanism related to the wire length appears as environmental coupling decoherence, with longer wires showing asymptotically longer phase coherence lengths. For mesoscopic stadia, the geometry plays an additional role, inducing stadium-wire coupling decoherence.