  We carry out a computational study on the geometric and electronic properties
of multi-layers of silicene in different stacking configurations using a
state-of-art abinitio density functional theory based calculations. In this
work we investigate the evolution of these properties with increasing number of
layers (n) ranging from 1 to 10. Though, mono-layer of silicene possesses
properties similar to those of graphene, our results show that the geometric
and electronic properties of multi-layers of silicene are strikingly different
from those of multi-layers of graphene. We observe that there exist strong
inter-layer covalent bondings between the layers in multi-layers of silicene as
opposed to weak van der Waal's bonding which exists between the graphene
layers. The inter-layer bonding strongly influences the geometric and
electronic structures of these multi-layers. Like bi-layers of graphene,
silicene with two different stacking configurations AA and AB exhibits linear
and parabolic dispersions around the Fermi level, respectively. However, unlike
graphene, for bi-layers of silicene, these dispersion curves are shifted in
band diagram; this is due to the strong inter-layer bonding present in the
latter. For n > 3, we study the geometric and electronic properties of
multi-layers with four different stacking configurations namely, AAAA, AABB,
ABAB and ABC. Our results on cohesive energy show that all the multi-layers
considered are energetically stable. Furthermore, we find that the three
stacking configurations (AAAA, AABB and ABC) containing tetrahedral
coordination have much higher cohesive energy than that of Bernal (ABAB)
stacking configuration. This is in contrast to the case of multi-layers of
graphene where ABAB is reported to be the lowest energy configuration.
