Conductance of gold nanojunctions thinned by electromigration

We investigate nanocontact formation by thermally assisted electromigration of gold nanowires. An automatic cycling process allows us to follow a line of constant power dissipated at the nanocontact up to resistances corresponding to 10–20 conductance quanta. The contacts are thinned in a controlled way by voltage-induced heating. In the ballistic regime, oscillations of the conductance histograms show oscillations typical for atomic discreteness.