Motif Transition in Growth Patterns of Small to Medium‐Sized Silicon Clusters

Generic structural motif: Small to medium-sized, energetically low-lying silicon clusters Sin (11<n<30) are generally prolate in shape. Starting from Si16, DFT calculations show that silicon clusters are most likely built on a generic structural motif consisting of an Si6 sixfold puckered ring subunit (dark green) and a magic-number cluster such as the Si6 tetragonal bipyramid (light green), rather than on the Si9 tricapped trigonal prism (pink).