Thermal properties of amorphous materials at low temperatures

Recent investigations of X-ray diffraction and electron micrograph studies reveal high density clusters separated by density deficient regions (voids) in amorphous materials. The low temperature specific heat and the thermal conductivity anomalies are explained on the basis of such a structure for amorphous materials. It is a generalisation of Debye's theory applied to most of the amorphous solids in the temperature range from 0 to 10 K. The anharmonic effects lead to the observed temperature dependence of the sound velocity. The thermal conductivity between 0 and 2 K is due to thermal diffusion, the plateau observed between 2 and 20 K is a consequence of the decrease in thermal conductivity due to three phonon processes compensated by intercluster diffusion, while beyond this range it is due to excitations within a cluster limited by the size of a cluster. Further the model predicts the coefficient of expansion about 100 times that found in the corresponding crystalline solids. An experimental verification of this result can be a good test for the model.     

Thermodynamic properties of small amorphous and crystalline Silica particles at low temperatures

We have measured the low-temperature (K) specific heat and heat release of small amorphous and crystalline SiO₂ particles embedded in Teflon and of Vycor. The temperature and time dependence of these properties have been interpreted in terms of the tunneling model. We found that the particle size influences the density of states of tunneling systems of the composite. The smaller the size of the particles the larger is the density of states of tunneling systems P₀. Quartz grains with dimensions in the micrometer range show similar glass-like properties as vitreous silica. In comparison with bulk vitreous silica, Vycor shows a much larger P₀ in agreement with the behavior we found for small SiO₂ particles. We discuss the implication of our results on the origin of the universal low-temperature properties of glasses. Received 9 April 1998     

Specific heat of amorphous silicon at low temperatures

The heat capacity of amorphous silicon has been measured between 2 and 50 K using an a.c. calorimetry technique. A comparison with heat capacity measurements of crystalline silicon shows a reduction of the Debye temperature by a factor 0.82 and of the position of the maximum in $\text{c}\text{T}{}^3$ by a factor of 0.77. This behaviour indicates a general reduction in frequency of the transversal-acoustic modes with respect to the corresponding modes of crystalline silicon.     

The electrical resistivity of amorphous alloys at low temperatures

Measurements of the temperature- and magnetic field dependence of the electrical resistance of some metallic glasses are presented. The data obtained for Cu₅₇Zr₄₃, Cu₄₀Zr₆₀ and Pd₃₀Zr₇₀ demonstrate that deviations from the high temperature behaviour extrapolated to low temperatures are caused by superconducting effects. The paraconductivity which is strongly enhanced in amorphous alloys is shown to agree quite well with theoretical models. The normal state resistance does not saturate down to temperatures of about 2 K. It still exhibits a negative temperature coefficient of the resistivity.     

Surface-phonon-assisted tunneling in two-dimensional amorphous systems at low temperatures

We investigate theoretically the effects of surface-phonon on the tunneling states in amorphous thin films at low temperatures. The attenuation rate of surface-phonon is estamated as functions of frequency and temperature. It is shown that the attenuation is proportional to $\text{ω}{}^3\text{T}$ for surface-phonon frequency small compared to k_BT. This dependence is quite different from that of amorphous bulk materials.     

Ultrasonic attenuation in the amorphous dielectrics at low temperatures

The effect of the environmental vibrations on the tunneling in the two- level systems in glasses is discussed. It is shown that the temperature, frequency and other dependences of the tunneling constant are charged drastically due to this mechanism. This allows one to explain the peculiar temperature dependence of the ultrasonic attenuation in glasses in a wide temperature range.     

Electronic properties of metals at low temperatures

A many body theory of an electron gas is developed to find the internal and correlation energies at low but finite temperatures. The contribution from the first order exchange, second order (regular and anomalous) exchange, and ring diagrams are treated. The Fermi momentum and the correlation energy are determined as functions of the density by two different methods, one being based on iteration and the other a direct solution of the number density relation. It was found that the iterative solutions which are correct to ordere ² ore ⁴ become negative forr _s of order 5 while the direct solutions do not, indicating the invalidity of the former. Hence, the correlation energy evaluated to the same orders by iteration will not be satisfactory in the same range. The highest order iterative solution which includes terms of ordere ⁶ does not show such a breakdown. These terms which give the contribution of orderr _s to the correlation energy are therefore important and tend to reduce the magnitude of the correlation energy. The corresponding curve is indeed close to that determined by the direct method for smallr _s but a significant deviation takes place at largerr _s . The Coulomb interaction seems less effective at higher temperatures. The internal energy is also determined as a function of density and temperature.     

Acoustic properties of glasses at low temperatures and low frequencies

We generalize the low temperature expressions for the variation of the sound velocity and sound absorption in glasses due to structural defects for the case of arbitrary frequencies. In case ωτ₂ ? 1 our expressions reduce to well known results.     

The hyperfine magnetic field in Fe-Hf amorphous alloys at low temperatures

The time-differential perturbed angular correlation (TDPAC) technique was applied to study the hyperfine magnetic field in amorphous Fe-Hf alloys with different Hf contents at low temperatures. The Hf content was changed from 20 to 40 at% andthe TDPAC measurements were carried out in the temperature range from room temperature down to 18 K. Very strong perturbations were observed for the specimen of low Hf content at low temperatures due to a strong hyperfine magnetic field. The characteristic feature observed by the present study is that the temperature dependence of the perturbation for the Fe-30 at% Hf source is quite different from that for other sources, indicating a maximum around 80 K. Discussions have been given on the explanation of the experimental results in the light of magnetic properties of these alloys.     

Transport properties of granular metals at low temperatures

We investigate transport in a granular metallic system at large tunneling conductance between the grains, g(T)>1. We show that at low temperatures, Tg(T)delta) behavior where conductivity is controlled by the scales of the order of the grain size. In three dimensions we predict the metal-insulator transition at the bare tunneling conductance g(C)(T)=(1/6pi)ln((E(C)/delta), where E(C) is the charging energy of a single grain. Corrections to the density of states of granular metals due to the electron-electron interaction are calculated. Our results compare favorably with the logarithmic dependence of resistivity in the high-T(c) cuprate superconductors indicating that these materials may have a granular structure.     

Fatigue effect in luminescence of glow discharge amorphous silicon at low temperatures

Fatigue in the luminescence was observed in glow discharge amorphous silicon at 4.2 K and 77 K. This fatigue was not recovered by infra-red illumination, but by heating the sample at higher temperatures. These results are interpreted in terms of enhancement of non-radiative recombination associated with dangling bonds created by high optical excitation.     

Thermal properties of smoky quartz at very low temperatures

The existence of a distribution of low-lying energy levels associated with holes trapped at substitutional aluminium impurities is confirmed by measurements of low temperature specific heat and dielectric loss. A large linearly temperature-dependent contribution to the specific heat is observed at temperatures below 1 K, down to 30 mK. A localization temperature describing the width of the distribution of the energy levels is estimated to vary between 3 and 6 K.

We determined the thermal conductivity down to 30 mK and attribute the decrease below the boundary-scattering value to irradiation damage generally, arguing that it is not attributable to resonant scattering.     

Magnetization of amorphous alloys — Deviations from spin wave theory at low temperatures

Spin resonance measurements have been used to obtain the temperature dependence of the magnetization in (Fe_xNi_1?x)₇₅P₁₆B₆A?₃ alloys for 4 ? T ? 300K. With x = 0.5, spin wave theory is adequate to account for the observations. For x = 0.4 and 0.3 marked deviations from $\text{T}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>3</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}$ behavior are noted below ～ 70K and we propose a simple model to account for these deviations.