Vibrational properties of nanograins and interfaces in nanocrystalline materials

The vibrational dynamics of nanocrystalline Fe(90)Zr(7)B(3) was studied at various phases of crystallization. The density of phonon states (DOS) of the nanograins was separated from that of the interfaces for a wide range of grain sizes and interface thicknesses. The DOS of the nanograins does not vary with their size and down to 2 nm grains still closely resembles that of the bulk. The anomalous enhancement of the phonon states at low and high energies originates from the DOS of the interfaces and scales linearly to their atomic fraction.