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Phonon-mediated damping of mechanical vibrations in a finite atomic chain coupled to an outer environment

We study phonon-mediated damping of mechanical vibrations in a finite quantum-mechanical atomic-chain model. Our study is motivated by the quest to understand the quality factors (Q) of nanomechanical resonators and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), as well as actual experiments with suspended atomic chains and molecular junctions. We consider a finite atomic chain which is coupled to a zero-temperature outer environment, modeled as two additional semi-infinite chains, thus inducing "clamping-losses". Weak coupling to the outer environment ensures that the clamping losses are small, and that the initially discrete nature of the phonon spectrum is approximately maintained. We then consider a phonon damping process known as "Landau-Rumer damping", where phonons in the excited mode of vibration decay into other modes through anharmonic phonon-phonon interaction. The approximately discrete nature of the phonon spectrum leads to sharp nonmonotonic changes in Q as parameters are varied, and to the appearance of resonances in the damping. The latter correspond to the existence of decay processes where the participating phonons approximately conserve energy. We explore means to control the damping by changing either the number of atoms in the chains or the ratio between the longitudinal and transverse speeds of sound, thereby suggesting future experiments to observe this resonance-like behavior.