Origin of conductance oscillations in square electron billiards: A semi-classical approach

We perform semi-classical and quantum mechanical calculations on square billiards and provide a semi-classical interpretation of the conductance oscillations. We outline its relation to the Gutzwillerʹs picture of periodic orbits. The frequencies of the conductance oscillations are shown to be due to interference of pairs of long trajectories, which in the phase space are typically situated near the corresponding periodic orbit. We identify the pair of trajectories causing the pronounced peak in a recent experiment and from this directly extract the phase coherence length.