Tight-binding calculations of Si-H clusters using genetic algorithms and related techniques: Studies using differential evolution

A nonorthogonal tight-binding model has been developed for the system containing Si and H, where the energy functional included the contributions of both electronic and pairwise interaction between the atoms. In order to calculate the ground state structures of various clusters, energy minimization was carried out using Differential Evolution: a very recently developed biologically inspired computing technique, belonging, in general, to the family of Genetic Algorithms (GAs), but having a number of advantages over its conventional forms.