X-Ray Diffraction Study of Fine Gold Particles Prepared by Gas Evaporation Technique. II. Characteristic Temperature

From an analysis of the X-ray Debye-Scherrer lines from fine gold particles with the mean size of 100 A, the mean square atomic displacement, , was determined at several temperatures in a range from 112 to 298 K. The temperature dependence of was analysed on the basis of the Einstein approximation for the thermal vibrations of atoms and a characteristic temperature θ M =143±3 K was obtained. This is 15% less than the Debye temperature θ M =168 K for the bulk crystal. It was found that the observed includes the temperature independent component, impling the existence of some kind of static lattice distortions. The contribution from such lattice distortions depends on the preparation condition of fine gold particles.