Structural Disorder and Heat Capacity of a Solid Solution between Cadmium and Strontium Fluorides

Abstract

The heat capacity Cp(T) of cadmium fluoride, strontium fluoride, and the Cd0.5Sr0.5F2 solid solution has been studied experimentally (2–300 K). We have detected deviations ΔCp(T) of the Cp(T) data from additivity. The low-temperature (2–50 K), positive deviations ΔCp(T) have been tentatively attributed to the effect of two-level systems associated with the glasslike character of the low-temperature thermal properties of the solution due to disorder in the Cd–Sr sublattice. The high-temperature (100–300 K), negative deviations ΔCp(T) are caused by the effect of anharmonicity of lattice vibrations, whose increasing role is also associated with the disordered arrangement of atoms in the crystal lattice upon formation of the solution. The Cp(T) data for the solution of the system studied have been analyzed in the Debye–Einstein model. We have determined model parameters: characteristic temperatures Θi and the fractions of different contributions, ai, to total thermal characteristics of the substances studied.