Noble-metal chalcogenide nanotubes

We explore the stability and the electronic properties of hypothetical noble-metal chalcogenide nanotubes PtS₂, PtSe₂, PdS₂ and PdSe₂ by means of density functional theory calculations. Our findings show that the strain energy decreases inverse quadratically with the tube diameter, as is typical for other nanotubes. Moreover, the strain energy is independent of the tube chirality and converges towards the same value for large diameters. The band-structure calculations show that all noble-metal chalcogenide nanotubes are indirect band gap semiconductors. The corresponding band gaps increase with the nanotube diameter rapidly approaching the respective pristine 2D monolayer limit.