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We present low-temperature specific heat (Cp) measurements of a monoclinic P2_{1}/c crystal formed by quasiplanar molecules of tetrachloro-m-xylene. The dynamic disorder frozen at low-temperature of the asymmetric unit (formed by a half molecule) consists of reorientation around a three-fold-like axis perpendicular to the benzene ring. Such a minimal disorder gives rise to typical glassy anomalies, as a linear in contribution in Cp ascribed to two-level systems and a broad maximum around 6.6 K in Cp/T^3 (the boson peak). We discuss these results in the framework of other quasiplanar molecular crystals with different accountable number of in-plane molecular orientations We find that the density of two-level systems does not correlate with the degree of orientational disorder. Rather, it is the molecular asymmetry that seems to play a relevant role in the thermal anomalies. Furthermore, we discuss the suggested correlation between the boson peak and Debye temperatures. We find that a linear correlation between the boson peak and Debye temperatures holds for many -- but not all -- structural glasses and strikingly holds even better for some disordered crystals, including our studied quasiplanar molecular crystals., Comment: 27 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables

Correlation between thermal expansions $\beta(T)$ and heat capacity $C(T)$ of atomic and molecular crystals, amorphous materials with a structural disorder, carbon nanomaterials (fullerite C$_{60}$, bundles SWCNTs of single-walled carbon nanotubes) was analyzed. The influence of the contribution to the coefficient of linear thermal expansion $\alpha_\textrm{Xe}(T)$ of Xe atoms adsorbed on the SWCNTs bundles is considered. The proportional correlation was found between the contribution to the coefficient of linear thermal expansion $\alpha_\textrm{Xe}(T)$ and the normalized to the gas constant heat capacity $C_\textrm{Xe}(T)/R$ of Xe atoms adsorbed on the SWCNTs bundles. The proportional correlation $(\beta/\beta^*) \sim (C_\textrm{V}/R)$ with the parameter $\beta^*$ for the bulk thermal expansion coefficient for cryocrystals is proposed. In the case of atomic crystals such as Xe and Ar, the proportional correlation $(\beta/\beta^*) \sim (C_\textrm{V}/R)$ is observed in the temperature range from the lowest experimental to temperatures where $C_\textrm{V}/R \approx 2.3$. The correlation is not observed in the temperatures where $2.3

Among the many physical properties, the amorphous state manifests itself in the most spectacular way in heat transport. Anomalously low thermal conductivity, its low-temperature dependence as a function of temperature, the presence of a plateau of thermal conductivity, all are definitely different when compared with the ordered state of crystals. For this reason, the microscopic mechanisms from which these surprising behaviors may emerge have been the subject of intensive theoretical research and even more extensive experimental research. These investigations have led to the detection of a huge range of disordered materials with somewhat similar properties, which have become a rich base for various physical interpretations. In this chapter we present the last 50 years of the history of experimental research together with the key theoretical physics scenarios, Comment: 39 pages, 3 figures

The low-temperature thermal and transport properties of an unusual kind of crystal exhibiting minimal molecular positional and tilting disorder have been measured. The material, namely, low-dimensional, highly anisotropic pentachloronitrobenzene (PCNB) has a layered structure of rhombohedral parallel planes in which the molecules execute large-amplitude in-plane as well as concurrent out-of-plane librational motions. Our study reveals that low-temperature glassy anomalies can be found in a system with minimal disorder due to the freezing of (mostly in-plane) reorientational jumps of molecules between equivalent crystallographic positions with partial site occupation. Our findings will pave the way to a deeper understanding of the origin of above-mentioned universal glassy properties at low temperature., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures

The maximal value of thermal conductivity \kappa_{max} of the perfect wurzite GaN crystal containing isotopes of natural abundance is estimated. Our upper limit of \kappa=4800 W/Km at T_{max}=32 K is smaller than calculated by Liu and Balandin \kappa=6000 W/Km and higher than obtained by Slack et al \kappa=3750 W/Km. The phenomenological dependence \kappa \propto T^{-1.43} obtained by Mion et al for the temperature interval 300-450 K is extended to 200-300K. For temperatures higher than T_max the best fitting of our experimental data to Callaway's formula is obtained for Grueneisen's constant equal to \gamma = 1.35., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures

We report on lattice specific heat of bulk hexagonal GaN measured by the heat flow method in the temperature range 20-300 K and by the adiabatic method in the range 5-70 K. We fit the experimental data using two temperatures model. The best fit with the accuracy of 3 % was obtained for the temperature independent Debye's temperature $\theta_{\rm D}=365$ {\rm K} and Einstein's temperature $\theta_{\rm E}=880$ {\rm K}. We relate these temperatures to the function of density of states. Using our results for heat conduction coefficient, we established in temperature range 10-100 K the explicit dependence of the phonon mean free path on temperature $\it{l}_{\rm ph}\propto T^{-2}$. Above 100 K, there is the evidence of contribution of the Umklapp processes which limit phonon free path at high temepratures. For phonons with energy $k_{\rm B}\times 300 $ {\rm K} the mean free path is of the order 100 {\rm nm}, Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

Until recently, the heat capacity of GaN had only been measured for polycrystalline powder samples. Semiempirical as well as \textit{first-principles} calculations have appeared within the past few years. We present in this article measurements of the heat capacity of hexagonal single crystals of GaN in the 20-1400K temperature range. We find that our data deviate significantly from the literature values for polycrystalline materials. The dependence of the heat capacity on the isotopic mass has also been investigated recently for monatomic crystals such as diamond, silicon, and germanium. Multi-atomic crystals are expected to exhibit a different dependence of these heat capacities on the masses of each of the isotopes present. These effects have not been investigated in the past. We also present \textit{first-principles} calculations of the dependence of the heat capacities of GaN, as a canonical binary material, on each of the Ga and N masses. We show that they are indeed different, as expected from the fact that the Ga mass affects mainly the acoustic, that of N the optic phonons. It is hoped that these calculations will encourage experimental measurements of the dependence of the heat capacity on isotopic masses in binary and more complex semiconductors., Comment: 12 pages, 5 Figures, submitted to PRB

The thermal conductivity of solid parahydrogen crystal with methane admixtures has been measured in the temperature range 1.5 to 8 K. Solid samples were grown from the gas mixture at 13 K. Concentration of CH4 admixture molecules in the gas varied form 5 to 570 ppm. A very broad maximum of thermal conductivity with absolute value of about 110 W/(m K) is observed at 2.6 K. The data are interpreted by Callaway model considering phonons resonant scattering on quasi-local vibrations of CH4 molecules, phonon-grain boundary and phonon-phonon scattering processes. The increase of grain boundary scattering leads to the decrease of the maximum broadening. The analysis shows that the solid mixture of p-H2 and CH4 is a heterogeneous solution for CH4 concentration higher than 0.1 ppm., Comment: 9 pages. to be published in LTP (2003)