Abstract
Using a transmission electron microscope combined with a scanning tunneling microscope, we find that the gold nanowire with the axis along the [110] direction shows quantized conductance clearly. The conductance histogram taken from three hundreds of thinning processes for the gold <110> nanowire shows nearly regular conductance peaks with a step of quantized unit of conductance below 30G0(=2e2/h). We determine conductance value of each stable gold <110> nanowire with symmetric hexagonal cross-section from analyzing the TEM images viewed from two different directions. For example, the nanowire consisting of seven or twelve <110> atomic rows has conductance of 6 or 9 G0, respectively.
