Grain interaction effect in electronic properties of silicon nanosize films

Abstract
Electronic properties of both nanometer thickness (111) monocrystalline and nanocrystalline free standing silicon films were calculated within a self-consistent linear combination of atomic orbitals method. Grained nature of the nanocrystalline films is found to induce both a direct band gap and its reduction (down to about 2 eV) with respect to an isolated grain of same size.