Glassy Anomalies in the Low-Temperature Thermal Properties of a Minimally Disordered Crystalline Solid

Phys Rev Lett. 2017 Nov 24;119(21):215506. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.215506. Epub 2017 Nov 21.

Abstract

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 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 the above-mentioned universal glassy properties at low temperature.