The Electronic Transport Properties of Silicon Meta-lattice Made by High Pressure CVD

A nanoscale 3D superlattice, called meta-lattice, can be synthesized by infiltrating a template of close-packed nanometer-scale silica spheres with Si by high pressure chemical vapor deposition. Their structures can be controlled by using different size spheres; accordingly, their electronic transport properties are geometry-dependent, and both localized and extended electronic states in three dimensions may exist, hence both band conduction and variable range hoping (VRH) may occur simultaneously. Metalattices offer a platform to continuously change properties of electronic transport by changing their geometries. We employ a tight-binding method to quantitatively look into the impact of geometry. The resultant electronic band structure is also used in the case of VRH conductance.