Ultrasonic and hypersonic behaviours of borate glasses

Comparative measurements of Brillouin light scattering and ultrasound in (K2O)0.04(B2O3)0.96 and (Ag2O)0.14(B2O3)0.86 borate glasses as a function of temperature between 1.5 and 300K reveal that distinct mechanisms regulate the temperature behaviours of the acoustic attenuation. In the MHz range the attenuation and the sound velocity are mainly governed by (i) quantum-mechanical tunnelling below 20K, (ii) thermally activated relaxations between 20 and 200K and (iii) vibrational inharmonicity at even higher temperatures. In the GHz range and in the temperature interval between 77 and 300K, additional contributions besides the relaxation process must be taken into consideration to account for the hypersonic attenuation.