Effect of atomic order on the characteristic of SiGe nanowire

Abstract

The semiconductor nanowires have promising application in nanotechnology and nano devices. In this paper we have studied the effect of atomic order on the band structure in SiGe nanowires with 4 atoms containing 2 atoms of Si and 2 atoms of Ge. We have considered a structure with square and zigzag cross section. By this study we found that SiGe nanowires with a square cross section is a conductor while SiGe nanowires with zigzag cross section is a semiconductor and their indirect energy band gaps for zigzag A and zigzag B are 0.534 eV and 0.564 eV respectively. From the considered nanowires zigzag A nanowire has highest electronic and thermal conductivity while zigzag B nanowire has lowest electronic and thermal conductivity.