Electronic structure of silicon-based nanostructures

We have developed a unifying tight-binding Hamiltonian that can account for the electronic properties of recently proposed Si-based nanostructures, namely, Si graphene-like sheets and Si nanotubes. We considered the sp^3s^* and sp^3 models up to first- and second-nearest neighbors, respectively. Our results show that the Si graphene-like sheets considered here are metals or zero-gap semiconductors, and that the corresponding Si nanotubes follow the so-called Hamada's Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 1579 (1992) rule. Comparison to a recent ab initio calculation is made.