Specular scattering probability of acoustic phonons in atomically flat interfaces

Phys Rev Lett. 2009 Dec 31;103(26):264301. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.264301. Epub 2009 Dec 30.

Abstract

We report a direct determination of the specular scattering probability of acoustic phonons at a crystal boundary by observing the escape of incident coherent phonons from the coherent state during reflection. In the sub-THz frequency range where the phonon wavelength is much longer than the lattice constant, the acoustic phonon-interface interaction is found to agree well with the macroscopic theory on wave scattering from rough surfaces. This examination thus quantitatively verifies the dominant role of atomic-scale corrugations in the Kapitza anomaly observed at 1-10 K and further opens a new path to nondestructively estimate subnanoscale roughness of buried interfaces.