Electronic and structural properties of Si10 cluster

Possible structures for Si₁₀ cluster are considered using a tight-binding model and drawing on significant work done in the past. It is shown that the tight-binding parametrization, fitted to the bulk, is also valid for smaller systems. This model is found to essentially reproduce other published results, but requires much less effort than ab initio techniques-thus, allowing the study of a wide variety of structures and their ions. However, unlike classical force-field calculations, it yields information about the electronic structure of clusters. A new geometric structure for Si₁₀ is found, which is not only of lowest energy, but which also matches the experimental photoelectron band gap and explains the experimental reactivity data. Because of the Jahn-Teller effect, the photoelectron spectrum is very sensitive to geometry. Also, ionization of the cluster alters the geometry slightly.