Anharmonic effects in light scattering due to optical phonons in silicon

Systematic measurements by light scattering of the linewidth and frequency shift of the →q=0 optical phonon in silicon over the temperature range of 5-1400 K are presented. Both the linewidth and frequency shift exhibit a quadratic dependence on temperature at high temperatures. This indicates the necessity of including terms in the phonon proper self-energy corresponding to four-phonon anharmonic processes.