THERMOELASTIC AND RELAXATIONAL PROPERTIES OF DIELECTRIC AND METALLIC GLASSES AT LOW TEMPERATURE

Abstract

We have investigated the low-temperature Grüneisen parameter and the long-time relaxational behaviour of the tunneling excitations in vitreous silica and in the metallic glass PdSiCu through the thermoelastic effect. In the case of a-SiO2, our data agree qualitatively with previous measurements of the thermal expansion, and relaxation times of up to 600 s have been detected. For PdSiCu a large relaxational contribution was found