A new approach to measure phonon dispersion relation (PDR) by Raman scattering and a downbending observation in diamond PDR

Abstract The phonon dispersion relation (PDR), i.e., the dependence of phonon frequency ω on its wavevector q, ω ( q ), was measured traditionally by inelastic neutron scattering (INS) or inelastic X-ray scattering (IXS). A new approach to measure PDR by Raman scattering (RS) of nanostructures was proposed and applied to observe the longitudinal optical (LO) PDR of diamond successfully. Due to the higher resolution and accuracy of ω and q in RS, a clear downbending feature of ω with increasing q away from the Brillouin zoon center was observed for the first time. The validity of the new approach has been confirmed also by the appearing of the downward bending in PDR, which is originally measured by traditional high-resolution IXS experiment. The downbending feature may give us a clue for deep understanding of the interactions occur in diamond, while the overbending feature observed by INS and IXS has been attributed to strong effective second-nearest-neighbor forces.