Acoustic and optical phonons and their dispersion in model ferroelastics Hg2Cl2

Thefrequency dispersion curve of acoustic and optical phonons are calculated and constructed, and the density of states of the phonon spectrum is obtained for Hg2Cl2 crystals. The influence of the hydrostatic pressure on the frequencies of acoustic and optical phonons and their dispersion is analyzed theoretically. It is revealed that an increase in the pressure leads to a considerable softening of the slowest acoustic TA branch (soft mode) at the X point of the Brillouin zone boundary. This behavior is consistent with the phenomenological Landau theory and correlate with experiments.