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Quantum point contacts (QPC) are fundamental building blocks of nanoelectronic circuits. For their emission dynamics as well as for interaction effects such as the 0.7-anomaly the details of the electrostatic potential are important, but the precise potential shapes are usually unknown. Here, we measure the one-dimensional subband spacings of various QPCs as a function of their conductance and compare our findings with models of lateral parabolic versus hard wall confinement. We find that a gate-defined QPC near pinch-off is compatible with the parabolic saddle point scenario. However, as the number of populated subbands is increased Coulomb screening flattens the potential bottom and a description in terms of a finite hard wall potential becomes more realistic., 7+2 pager, 7 figures, v2: published version (minor changes)

We have measured the temperature dependence of the conductance of long V-groove quantum wires fabricated using GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures, in a wide temperature range (200 mK < T < 4.2 K). We find that for our quantum wires the Fermi velocity can be as low as nu(F) congruent to 5 x 10(4) m/s, corresponding to an interaction parameter value of g congruent to 0.56. This value suggests that our data are consistent with theories developed within the framework of the Luttinger liquid model in the presence of a single strong barrier (weak link).

Electronic and transport properties of a short Ni nanowire suspended between two semi-infinite ferromagnetic Ni leads are explored in the framework of density-functional theory. The spin-dependent ballistic conductance of the nanowire is calculated using a scattering-based approach and the Landauer-Buttiker formula. The total calculated conductance in units of $G_0 = 2e^2/h$ is around 1.6, in fairly good agreement with the broad peak observed around 1.5 for the last conductance step in break junctions. Separating contributions from different spins, we find nearly 0.5 $G_0$ from the majority spin $s$-like channel, whereas the remaining minority spin conductance of 1.1 $G_0$ contains significant contributions from several $d$ states, but much less than 0.5 $G_0$ from $s$ states. The influence of the structural relaxation on the magnetic properties and the ballistic conductance of the nanowire is also studied., 9 pages, 7 figures, to appear in PRB

In this work, we have investigated the influence of power-law roughness on the ballistic thermal conductance K-TH for a nanosized beam adiabatically connected between two heat reservoirs. The sideways wall beam roughness is assumed to be power-law type, which is described by the roughness amplitude w, the in-plane roughness correlation length xi and the roughness exponent 0less than or equal toHless than or equal to1. Distinct differences occur in between power-law and Gaussian wall roughness. For power-law roughness with low roughness exponents H (0.5) the conductance drop is significantly smaller than that of Gaussian roughness assuming similar roughness ratios w/xi.

The conductance of a single-atom contact is sensitive to the coupling of this contact atom to the atoms in the leads. Notably for the transition metals this gives rise to a considerable spread in the observed conductance values. The mean conductance value and spread can be obtained from the first peak in conductance histograms recorded from a large set of contact-breaking cycles. In contrast to the monovalent metals, this mean value for Pt depends strongly on the applied voltage bias and other experimental conditions, ranging from about 1 to 2.5 times 2e^2/h. We propose that the different results in part can be explained by the inclusion of hydrogen in the contacts. The bias dependence of the conductance is on the other hand due to the electron current that destabilizes monatomic Pt chains at high bias., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures