Cohesion, Conductance, and Charging Effects in a Metallic Nanocontact

The conducting and thermodynamic properties of ballistic metallic nanocontacts with smooth shapes are investigated. All properties are related to the electronic scattering matrix, which is evaluated in the WKB approximation for independent electrons and in the self-consistent Hartree approximation for interacting electrons. Mesoscopic oscillations of order 1nN in the cohesive force and of order e in the contact charge are predicted when a metallic nanocontact is pulled apart, which are synchronized with quantized jumps in the conductance.