The conductance of a ballistic quantum wire between two reservoirs exhibits steps of height 2e^{2}/h, if the occupation of transverse subbands is changed. We investigate conditions for observation of these steps starting from Kubo-Greenwood formula. We show how the conductance steps are influenced by the properties of the external regions as well as by the nature of the connection between these regions and the wire. Furthermore we incorporate residual scattering in long wires.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.