Abstract
The low-temperature conducting properties of microstructures are observed to vary in a random manner as a function of magnetic field or carrier density. These fluctuations are sample-specific, but time-independent and reproducible within a given sample. It is now understood that these fluctuations result from random quantum interference of diffusing electrons. We review the recently-developed theory of these novel fluctuation phenomena, which predicts that the order of magnitude of the absolute fluctuations in the conductance of any metallic system is e 2 /h,as long as the conductor is probed on length scales of the order of the inelastic diffusion length. Differences between the behavior of the fluctuations measured in a two-probe as compared to a multi-probe geometry are discussed, and some recent results relevant to the multi-probe case are presented. A recent hypothesis relating these time-independent fluctuation effects to low-frequency noise in dirty metals is reviewed, and a decisive experiment for testing the theory is proposed.
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