Ground-state energies of one- and two-electron silicon dots in an amorphous silicon dioxide matrix.

Abstract

The one- and two-electron ground-state energies of a silicon sphere embedded in an amorphous silicon dioxide matrix are calculated as a function of the sphere size. The electron-electron interaction and polarization effects are treated by perturbation; our quantum-mechanical calculation is valid for small spheres with radii between 10 and 40 \AA{}. For large spheres, classical electrostatics is used. A universal effective capacitance is defined in terms of the difference in the ground-state energies of the (n+1)- and n-electron cases, which agrees with the usual concept of capacitance in the classical limit.