Ballistic transport in gold [110] nanowire

Conductance of gold nanowire elongated along the [110] direction (gold [110] nanowire) was measured during many breaking procedures, while simultaneously acquiring transmission electron microscope images. The conductance histogram exhibits a series of peaks whose conductance values increased nearly in steps of the conductance quantum, G0 =2e$^{2}$/h. However thick nanowires above 10G$_{0}$ showed dequantization, where the increment was only 0.9G$_{0}$. The structure for each peak was determined to be either an atomic sheet or a hexagonal prism. The number of conductance channels calculated for each atomic structure by first principles theory, coincided well with the peak index in the conductance histogram. The present study shows that the [110] nanowire behave as ballistic conductors, and a conductance peak appears whenever a conductance channel is opened.