Heat capacity of suspended phonon cavities

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the vibrational spectrum and heat capacity of suspended mesoscopic dielectric plates at sub-Kelvin temperatures, revealing a linear temperature dependence and invariance under certain scaling, indicating quantum regime emergence.

Contribution

It provides a detailed 3D elastic analysis of phonon modes in suspended cavities, establishing a lower bound for heat capacity and demonstrating quantum effects in mesoscopic structures.

Findings

Heat capacity approaches linear dependence on T at sub-Kelvin temperatures.

Heat capacity is invariant under the product of T and the lateral dimension L.

Quantum mechanical regime emerges in the dynamics of bounded phonon cavities.

Abstract

We present a detailed analysis of the vibrational spectrum and heat capacity of suspended mesoscopic dielectric plates, for various thickness-to-side ratios at sub-Kelvin temperatures. The vibrational modes of the suspended cavity are accurately obtained from the three-dimensional (3D) elastic equations in the small strain limit and their frequencies assigned to the cavity phonon modes. The calculations demonstrate that the heat capacity of realistic quasi-2D phonon cavities approach the linear dependence on T at sub-Kelvin temperatures. The behavior is more pronounced for the thinnest cavities, but takes place also for moderately thick structures, with thickness-to-side ratios $\gamma$=0.1 to 0.2. It is also demonstrated that the heat capacity of the suspended phonon cavities is invariant under the product of the temperature (T) with a characteristic lateral dimension (L) of the sample. The present results establish a lower bound for the heat capacity of suspended mesoscopic structures and indicate the emergence of the quantum mechanical regime in the dynamics of bounded phonon cavities.