Bismuth (111) oxides and chalcogenides Bi,X, (X = 0, S, Se, Te) comprise a family of technologically important semiconductors [ 11. The high-temperature modification of Bi,O, is of interest as an ionic conductor. The knowledge of the electronic structure of Bi,O, is useful for understanding the bismuth valence state in the series of BaPb,-,Bi,O, and Ba, -,K,BiO, crystals. Both of them show superconducting properties in certain composition ranges [2,3]. Although band structure calculations of these complex crystals have been made [4, 51, the theoretical analysis of electronic structure and chemical bonding in bismuth oxides is restricted to an investigation of 6-Bi,03 with a simplified structure [6, 71.The electronic structure of bismuth oxide is studied by means of X-ray emission and photoelectron spectroscopy [8]. However, the electronic fine structure of different modifications of bismuth oxide is not discussed.Bismuth oxide crystallizes in four modifications [9]. The crystal structures of a- [lo] and p-Bi,O, [ll] were determined, but there are no reliable data on y-and 6-Bi20,. For the &modification several models were proposed [ 101. In theoretical studies one usually uses the idealized Sillen model. In Table 1 space groups and the shortest bismuth-oxygen distances are given for a-, p-, and &modifications. Although the average Bi-0 distance in all bismuth oxides is practically the same, the nearest distances in a-and P-modifications are shorter than in 6. Thus one may suppose a higher degree of ionicity in 6-Bi,03.In this note we report the results of self-consistent band CNDO (Complete Neglect of Differential Overlap) calculations of three crystalline modifications of Bi,O, : monoclinic a-Bi,O,, tetragonal b-Bi,O,, and cubic 6-Bi,03. The band theory approach based on the