QUANTAL ESTIMATES OF BINDING-ENERGIES OF LARGE SILICON CLUSTERS (SI)NWITH N-GREATER-THAN-10

We employ a computationally accessible semi-empirical effective Hamilt onian method to calculate binding energies for large silicon clusters (Si)n, for n > 10. The differences in binding energy between different geometric structures at a given cluster size generally tend to decrea se with cluster size. This implies the possibility of cluster growth c lose to crystalline structure with Td symmetry at certain finite tempe ratures.