Theory of Sound Attenuation in Glasses: The Role of Thermal Vibrations

Abstract

Sound attenuation and internal friction coefficients are calculated for a realistic model of amorphous silicon. It is found that, contrary to previous views, thermal vibrations can induce sound attenuation at ultrasonic and hypersonic frequencies that is of the same order or even larger than in crystals. The reason is the internal strain induced anomalously large Grüneisen parameters of the low-frequency resonant modes.