Signature of atomic structure in the quantum conductance of gold nanowires

We have used high resolution transmission electron microscopy to determine the structure of gold nanowires generated by mechanical stretching. Just be fore rupture, the contacts adopt only three possible atomic configurations, whose occurrence probabilities and quantized conductance were subsequently estimated. These predictions have shown a remarkable agreement with conduc tance measurements from a break junction operating in ultrahigh vacuum, cor roborating the derived correlation between nanowire atomic structure and co nductance behavior.