Abstract: A study was made of the heating of electrons in normal resistive states of superconducting thin Nb films. The directly determined relaxation time of the resistance of a sample and the rise of the electron temperature were used to find the electron-phonon interaction time rep,, The dependence of rep, on the mean free path of electrons re,, a 1-'demonstrated, in agreement with the theoretical predictions, that the contribution of the inelastic scattering of electrons by impurities to the energy relaxation process decreased at low temperatures and the observed temperature dependence rep, a T 2 was due to a modification of the phonon spectrum in thin fllms.
1. Much new information on the electron-phonon interaction time?;,, in thin films of normal metals and superconductors has been published recently. This information has been obtained mainly as a result of two types of measurement. One includes experiments on weak electron localization investigated by the method of quantum interference corrections to the conductivity of disordered conductors, which can be used to find the relaxation time T, of the phase of the electron wave function. In the absence of the scattering of electrons by paramagnetic impurities the relaxation time T, is associated with the most effective process of energy relaxation: T;= TL+ rep;, where T,, is the electronelectron relaxation time. At low temperatures, when the dependence T; a T is exhibited by thin disordered films, the dominant channel is that of the electron-electron relaxation and there is a lower limit to the temperature range in which rep, can be investigated.