In dispersion relation diagrams, where omega is plotted against k, omega is sometimes nonzero at k=0. How is this possible? I thought a wave had to have a nonzero wavenumber
Answers and Replies
Related Atomic and Condensed Matter News on Phys.org
Optical phonons occur in crystals which have more than one atom per unit cell. If you have a phonon with k=0 that means the displacement of atoms is the same in every cell. When you have only one atom per cell, then a k=0 displacement is just a shift of the whole crystal, so there can't be a restoring force (hence, [tex]\omega=0[/tex]). But if you have more than one atom per unit cell then the atoms could displace relative to one another (eg. like a bond-stretching mode). Then you can have a k=0 wave, where the displacement is the same in each cell, but the atoms in the cell move relative to one another. Then you will have a restoring force, and have [tex]\omega > 0[/tex] for this type of phonon.