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Updated: Jul 23, 2025

Interfacial Molecular-level Structures of Polymers and Biomacromolecules Revealed via Sum Frequency Generation Vibrational Spectroscopy
Published on: August 13, 2019
Acoustic transparency of the chain-chain interface
1Institute for Problems in Mechanical Engineering RAS, Saint Petersburg, Russia and Peter the Great Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Abstract:
We study propagation of wave packets through the interface between two dissimilar harmonic chains with on-site potentials (e.g., chains lying on elastic foundations). An expression for the transmission coefficient, relating energies of the incident and transmitted wave packets is derived using two different approaches. Without elastic foundation, the transmission coefficient monotonically decreases with increasing wave frequency. We show that by adding elastic foundations, one can qualitatively change this dependence and make it nonmonotonic or even increasing. Moreover, in some cases, the interface is totally transparent (the transmission coefficient is equal to unity at some frequency) if at least one of the chains has the elastic foundation. Presented results may serve for manipulation of the transmission coefficient and corresponding interfacial thermal resistance in low-dimensional nanosystems.
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