Band Structure of Platinum Antimonide

The band structure of Pt${\mathrm{Sb}}_2$ is calculated in a tight-binding approximation, assuming that the conduction and valence bands are formed primarily from an incomplete set of $5d$ electrons on ionized Pt, the band gap arising from spin-orbit splitting; the interaction with the $6s$ orbitals is included. Interactions with the Sb atoms have been largely ignored, apart from certain geometrical effects. The calculated bands show the observed symmetries and approximately the observed effective masses, but are very shallow; the full effect of this shallowness on the transport properties has not yet been determined.