Comment on ``Quantum Suppression of Shot Noise in Atom-Size Metallic Contacts''

Abstract

In a recent letter (Phys.Rev.Lett. 82, 1526 (1999)), van den Brom and van Ruitenbeek found a pronounced suppression of the shot noise in atom-size gold contacts with conductances near integer multiples of $G_0=2e^2/h$, revealing unambiguously the quantized nature of the electronic transport. However, the ad hoc model they introduced to describe the contribution of partially-open conductance channels to the shot noise is unable to fit either the maxima or minima of their shot noise data. Here we point out that a model of quantum-confined electrons with disorder quantitatively reproduces their measurements.