Flat bands in Weaire-Thorpe model and silicene

Abstract: In order to analytically capture and identify peculiarities in the electronic structure of silicene, Weaire-Thorpe(WT) model, a standard model for treating three-dimensional (3D) silicon, is applied to silicene with the buckled 2D structure. In the original WT model for four hybridized $sp^3$ orbitals on each atom along with inter-atom hopping, the band structure can be systematically examined in 3D, where flat (dispersionless) bands exist as well. For examining silicene, here we re-formulate the WT model in terms of the overlapping molecular-orbital (MO) method which enables us to describe flat bands away from the electron-holesymmetric point. The overlapping MO formalism indeed enables us to reveal an important difference: while in 3D the dipersive bands with cones are sandwiched by doubly-degenerate flat bands, in 2D the dipersive bands with cones are sandwiched by triply-degenerate and non-degenerate (nearly) flat bands, which is consistent with the original band calculation by Takeda and Shiraishi. Thus emerges a picture for why the whole band structure of silicene comprises a pair of dispersive bands with Dirac cones with each of the band touching a nearly flat (narrow) band at $\Gamma$. We can also recognize that, for band engineering, the bonds perpendicular to the atomic plane are crucial, and that a ferromagnetism or structural instabilities are expected if we can shift the chemical potential close to the flat bands.