Three-dimensional effects on the electronic structure of quasiperiodic systems

Abstract

We report on a theoretical study of the electronic structure of quasiperiodic, quasi-one-dimensional systems where fully three-dimensional interaction potentials are taken into account. In our approach, the actual physical potential acting upon the electrons is replaced by a set of nonlocal separable potentials, leading to an exactly solvable Schrödinger equation. By choosing an appropriate trial potential, we obtain a discrete set of algebraic equations that can be mapped onto a general tight-binding-like equation. We introduce a Fibonacci sequence either in the strength of the on-site potentials or in the nearest-neighbor distances, and we find numerically that these systems present a highly fragmented, self-similar electronic spectrum, which becomes singular continuous in the thermodynamical limit. In this way we extend the results obtained so far in one-dimensional models to the three-dimensional case. As an example of the application of the model we consider the chain polymer case.