Analysis of the low-temperature specific heat of amorphous As x Se1−x within the soft-potential model

Abstract

The soft-potential model provides a description of the specific-heat anomaly of glasses, i.e. the linear specific heatC below 1 K and the maximum ofC/T3 vs.T at temperaturesT of a few K, by three material parameters, namely the mass densityp, the sound velocityv, and the average atomic massM. The experimental results of As x Se1−x are compared with theoretical predictions of this model. The overall good agreement suggests that the soft-potential model, which is an extension of the original tunneling model for glasses, describes the glassy behavior in the whole low-temperature region up to a few K.