Acoustical investigations of uranium chalcogenides

Abstract

Ultrasonic attenuation due to phonon-phonon interaction and thermoelastic loss was evaluated in uranium chalcogenides viz. UX, X= S, Se, Te in fcc phase in the temperature range 50-600 K for longitudinal and shear waves along the <100>, <110> and <111> directions of propagation. Electrostatic and Born-Mayer repulsive potentials were used to obtain second and third order elastic constants, taking the nearest neighbour distance and hardness parameter as the input data. Second and third order elastic constants (obtained at various temperatures) were used to obtain the Gruneisen parameters and non-linearity or anisotropy parameters, which in turn were used to evaluate the ultrasonic attenuation coefficient over the frequency square due to phonon-phonon interaction, (α/f2)p-p in the Akhiezer regime. It has been found that at lower temperatures α/f2 increases rapidly with temperature, and at higher temperatures the rate of increase becomes small. Contribution to the total attenuation due to thermoelastic loss is negligible in comparison with that of phonon-phonon interaction, i.e. a major part of the energy from the sound wave is removed, due to interaction of acoustic phonons with thermal phonons (lattice vibrations).