Novel Bismuth Nanotubes

Theoretical investigations show that bismuth nanotubes are semiconductors for all diameters. For small diameter bismuth nanotubes, the band structures and bandgaps vary strongly with the strong hybridization effect. When the diameters are larger than 18Å, the bandgaps of Bi (n,n) and (n,0) nanotubes approach to 0.63 eV, corresponding to the bandgap of bismuth sheet at the Γ point. Thus, bismuth nanotubes are expected to be a potential semiconductor nanomaterial in future nanoelectronics.