One-dimensional silicon and germanium nanostructures with no carbon analoguesElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c4cp03708a

In this work we report new silicon and germanium tubular nanostructures with no corresponding stable carbon analogues. The electronic and mechanical properties of these new tubes were investigated through ab initio methods. Our results show that these structures have lower energy than their correspo...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Perim, E, Paupitz, R, Botari, T, Galvao, D. S
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In this work we report new silicon and germanium tubular nanostructures with no corresponding stable carbon analogues. The electronic and mechanical properties of these new tubes were investigated through ab initio methods. Our results show that these structures have lower energy than their corresponding nanoribbon structures and are stable up to high temperatures (500 and 1000 K, for silicon and germanium tubes, respectively). Both tubes are semiconducting with small indirect band gaps, which can be significantly altered by both compressive and tensile strains. Large bandgap variations of almost 50% were observed for strain rates as small as 3%, suggesting their possible applications in sensor devices. They also present high Young's modulus values (0.25 and 0.15 TPa, respectively). TEM images were simulated to help in the identification of these new structures. DFT calculations predict silicon and germanium nanostructures with no carbon analogues. These structures show promising mechanical and electronic properties.
ISSN:1463-9076
1463-9084
DOI:10.1039/c4cp03708a