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The thermal conductivity κ(T ) of the fully ordered stable phase II, the metastable phase III, the orientationally disordered (plastic) phase I, as well as the nonergodic orientational glass (OG) phase, of the glass former cyclohexanol (C6H11OH) has been measured under equilibrium vapor pressure within the 2–200 K temperature range. The main emphasis is here focused on the influence of the conformational disorder upon the thermal properties of this material. Comparison of results with those regarding cyanoclyclohexane (C6H11CN), a chemically related compound, serves to quantify the role played by the terminal groups -OH and -CN on the phonon scattering processes. The picture that emerges shows that motions of such groups do play a minor role as scattering centers, both within the low-temperature orientationally ordered phases as well as in the OG states. The results are analyzed within the Debye-Peierls relaxation time model for isotropic solids comprising mechanisms for long-wave phonon scattering within the OG and orientational ordered low-temperature phases, as well as others arising from localized short-wavelength vibrational modes as pictured by the Cahill-Pohl model. By means of complementary neutron and Raman scattering we show that in the OG state the energy landscapes for both compounds are very similar., Postprint (published version)

The thermal conductivity κ(T) of the fully ordered stable phase II, the metastable phase III, the orientationally disordered (plastic) phase I, as well as the nonergodic orientational glass (OG) phase, of the glass former cyclohexanol (C 6H 11OH) has been measured under equilibrium vapor pressure within the 2-200 K temperature range. The main emphasis is here focused on the influence of the conformational disorder upon the thermal properties of this material. Comparison of results with those regarding cyanoclyclohexane (C 6H 11CN), a chemically related compound, serves to quantify the role played by the terminal groups -OH and -CN on the phonon scattering processes. The picture that emerges shows that motions of such groups do play a minor role as scattering centers, both within the low-temperature orientationally ordered phases as well as in the OG states. The results are analyzed within the Debye-Peierls relaxation time model for isotropic solids comprising mechanisms for long-wave phonon scattering within the OG and orientational ordered low-temperature phases, as well as others arising from localized short-wavelength vibrational modes as pictured by the Cahill-Pohl model. By means of complementary neutron and Raman scattering we show that in the OG state the energy landscapes for both compounds are very similar. © 2012 American Physical Society.

Postprint (published version)

The thermal conductivity k(T) of the orientational glass state of 1,2-difluoro-1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane (CFCl2-CFCl2, Freon 112) and cyanocyclohexane (C6H11CN) has been measured under equilibrium pressure within the temperature range 2-100 K. The results show that the soft-potential model is able to account for low-temperature data and, indeed, quantitative agreement of all data considered is found within this realm. The details beyond such temperatures are heavily dependent on chemical details and a large plateau is observed for Freon 112 which is rationalized in terms of resonant scattering of phonons by simple oscillators. Such a view is given additional support by the presence of a strong low-frequency feature in the generalized frequency spectrum of the former material as proven by inelastic neutron-scattering spectroscopy. ©2010 The American Physical Society