PHONON HOPPING

Experimental data in some amorphous, glassy and quasicrystalline mater ials suggest heat transport due to phonon hopping. A necessary prerequ isite of such transport mechanism is the localization of vibrational s tates and anharmonicity induced interaction between these states. A th eoretical study of phonon hopping requires the derivation and solution of corresponding rate equations. The above problems will be criticall y discussed, in particular the formal relationship between phonon and electron hopping.