Dissipation induced by phonon elastic scattering in crystals

Abstract

We demonstrate that the phonon elastic scattering leads to a dominant dissipation in crystals at low temperature. The two-level systems (TLSs) should be responsible for the elastic scattering, whereas the dissipation induced by static-point defects (SPDs) can not be neglected. One purpose of this work is to show how the energy splitting distribution of the TLS ensemble affects the dissipation. Besides, this article displays the proportion of phonon-TLS elastic scattering to total phonon dissipation. The coupling coefficient of phonon-SPD scattering and the constant P 0 of the TLS distribution are important that we estimate their magnitudes in this paper. Our results is useful to understand the phonon dissipation mechanism, and give some clues to improve the performance of mechanical resonators, apply the desired defects, or reveal the atom configuration in lattice structure of disordered crystals.