Back to Phonon Intro
Java Phonon Applet
Transverse Optical and Acoustic Phonon Dispersion
Move the bottom slide bar to change the wavelength and move the top slide bar
to vary the relative masses of the atoms.
In the graph above, the energy of a phonon traveling
perpendicular to the lattice planes for a solid with a two-atom basis (like
salt) is calculated for a one-dimensional model.
The vertical green line indicates the wave vector (2 pi/lambda)
times the size of the unit cell (two atom separation distances ).
The value ka equal 1.57 (pi/2), corresponds to the first
Brillouin zone boundary.
Back to Phonon Intro
Back to Applet list
Back to Start page
Michael A. Lee and Kevin E. Schmidt
July 1, 2000