Three impurity cluster in a diatomic linear chain

The modes of vibration of a three impurity cluster in a diatomic linear chain is studied. The configuration of the three impurity atoms is such that two of these go into next nearest neighbour sites in one of the sub-lattices whereas the third occupies the central in between site in the other sub-lattice. New local, gap and inband modes are seen to exist, besides the ones corresponding to the impurity pairs. A new feature which appears is that the frequencies of some of the pair modes remain totally unaffected in the presence of the third impurity atom.