Conductance of short quantum wires with sharp boundaries

The conductance of short ballistic wires with boundaries, whose curvature radius is comparable to the electron wavelength, is investigated. It is found that, in such wires, no conductance quantization takes place. Instead, pronounced interference effects are observed. These effects are related to the Fabry-Perot interference by the wire edges and with the mesoscopic interference caused by the coherent scattering of electrons by the wire edges and by the impurities located in the near-wire regions of the 2D electron gas.