The electronic spectrum of a three-dimensional quasicrystal

The electronic spectrum of an icosahedral quasicrystal with a central-atom decoration of the Amman-Mackay network is investigated in the tight-binding approximation. The quasicrystal is described as a structural limit of the optimal cubic approximants with increasing period. The electronic spectra for the first four optimal cubic approximants do not contain the hierarchical gap structure which is typical for the Cantor set of the spectrum of a one-dimensional quasicrystal. At the same time, as the order of the approximant increases, the spectrum becomes singular throughout the entire energy scale. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 67, No. 8, 557–562 (25 April 1998) Published in English in the original Russian journal. Edited by Steve Torstveit.