Ballistic electronic transport in Quantum Cables

Abstract

We studied theoretically ballistic electronic transport in a proposed mesoscopic structure - Quantum Cable. Our results demonstrated that Qauntum Cable is a unique structure for the study of mesoscopic transport. As a function of Fermi energy, Ballistic conductance exhibits interesting stepwise features. Besides the steps of one or two quantum conductance units ($2e^2/h$), conductance plateaus of more than two quantum conductance units can also be expected due to the accidental degeneracies (crossings) of subbands. As structure parameters is varied, conductance width displays oscillatory properties arising from the inhomogeneous variation of energy difference betweeen adjoining transverse subbands. In the weak coupling limits, conductance steps of height $2e^2/h$ becomes the first and second plateaus for the Quantum Cable of two cylinder wires with the same width.