Size Dependence In The Disordered Kondo Problem

Abstract

We study here the role randomly-placed non-magnetic scatterers play on the Kondo effect. We show that spin relaxation effects (with time $τ_s^o$)in the vertex corrections to the Kondo self-energy lead to an exact cancellation of the singular temperature dependence arising from the diffusion poles. For a thin film of thickness $L$ and a mean-free path $\ell$, disorder provides a correction to the Kondo resistivity of the form $τ_s^o/(k_FL\ell^2)\ln T$ that explains both the disorder and sample-size depression of the Kondo effect observed by Blachly and Giordano (PRB {\bf 51}, 12537 (1995)).