Construct · 1 fields · 4 citations

phonon: a standalone construct

One name. One construct. A landmark on the map.

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phonon1 CONSTRUCTPhononDEBYE · LATTICE QUANTUM

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Condensed Matter Physics

The quantum of lattice vibration in a solid

Peter Debye's 1912 theory of specific heats first treated a solid's heat content as a collection of quantised elastic vibration modes spanning the whole crystal, and in the same year Max Born and Theodore von Kármán worked out how such vibrations propagate through a regular atomic lattice. A phonon is the quantum of one of these collective vibrations: a discrete packet of vibrational energy that behaves like a particle (a quasiparticle) and carries sound and heat through a solid much as a photon carries light. The name was introduced in the early 1930s by analogy with the photon (Yakov Frenkel used it in his 1932 wave-mechanics text, and Igor Tamm is also credited), and Max Born and Kun Huang's 1954 treatment set the standard framework for lattice dynamics. The construct's reach is what makes it a landmark: from the single idea of a quantised lattice wave it accounts for a solid's low-temperature heat capacity, its thermal and electrical conduction, the scattering of neutrons and light, and the electron pairing behind conventional superconductivity.[1][2][3][4]

Unit
A quasiparticle: the quantised normal mode of a crystal lattice, characterised by a wavevector, a frequency, and a branch (acoustic or optical)
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Mapped experimentally through inelastic neutron and X-ray scattering, which resolve the phonon dispersion (energy against wavevector), and probed by Raman and infrared spectroscopy

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Nearby constructs

lattice4 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, four constructsquantum4 fields · 7 citationsjingle · one word, four constructsdispersion4 fields · 6 citationsjingle · one word, four constructs

References

  1. Debye, P. (1912). Zur Theorie der spezifischen Wärmen. Annalen der Physik, 344(14), 789–839. https://doi.org/10.1002/andp.19123441404
  2. Born, M., & von Kármán, T. (1912). Über Schwingungen in Raumgittern. Physikalische Zeitschrift, 13, 297–309.
  3. Frenkel, J. (1932). Wave mechanics: Elementary theory. Clarendon Press.
  4. Born, M., & Huang, K. (1954). Dynamical theory of crystal lattices. Oxford University Press.

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