Conductance fluctuations and 1/fnoise in Bi

The 1/f resistance noise of Bi films has been measured as a function of temperature and magnetic field over the ranges 0.3--300 K and 0--8 T, respectively. As the temperature decreases below 70 K, the noise increases, and at 1 K it is larger than at room temperature. Below 20 K the noise magnitude is reduced by a factor of 2 in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field of magnitude Φ₀/L_φ², where Φ₀ is the flux quantum, and L_φ is the phase-breaking length. These phenomena show that below about 70 K the noise is enhanced by the interference of the conduction electrons on the scale of L_φ, as described by Feng, Lee, and Stone.