Electron transport in a curved nanorod is studied. By setting up a Serret-Frenet parallel moving coordinate system, the differential geometry is employed to transform the problem into electron scattering via an effective potential defined along the linear nanorod. In the small curvature condition, the first order Born approximation is used to obtain the analytical expression of the transmission coefficient. The result shows that the transmission coefficient oscillates with the variation of the electron energy, which clearly indicates a quantum interference due to bending. The transmission coefficient is proportional to the 4-th order power of the curvature, which implies that the curvature has a very strong influence on the electron transport. The result has potential application in nano-mechanics and nano-electron devices.

mesoscopic system; electron transport; curved nanorod; quantum interference