Low-frequency vibrational spectroscopy of glasses

Abstract

Atomic vibrations in perfect, slightly defective or mixed crystals are to a large extent well understood since many decades. Theoretical descriptions are thus in excellent agreement with the experiments. As a consequence, phonon-related properties like specific heat, thermal conductivity or sound attenuation are also well explained in these solids. This is not yet the case in glasses where the lack of periodicity generates enormous difficulties in theoretical treatments as well as in experiments or in numerical simulations. Thanks to recent developments along all these lines, comprehensive studies have emerged in the last decades and several decisive advances have been made. This chapter is thus devoted to a discussion of the nature of the vibrational properties in glasses with particular emphasis on the low-frequency part of the vibrational density of states, including the acoustic excitations, and of the experimental techniques used to their study.