On EXAFS Debye-Waller factor and recent advances

The effects of structural and vibrational disorder on the EXAFS signals are parameterized in terms of the Debye Waller (DW) factor. Here the vibrational contribution is addressed, which for most systems can be singled out by studying the temperature dependence of the EXAFS DW factor, which corresponds to a good accuracy to the parallel mean square relative displacement (MSRD) around the inter-atomic equilibrium distance. By comparing the first-shell EXAFS thermal expansion with the crystallographic thermal expansion one can evaluate the perpendicular MSRD. The results of recent measurements on copper and on several tetrahedral semiconductors are here critically compared and some properties of the MSRDs are discussed, such as the dependence of correlation, force constants and vibrational anisotropy on crystal structure and bond ionicity as well as the relative merits of the correlated Debye and Einstein models. The anharmonic contribution to the parallel MSRD of CdTe has been evaluated and a quasi-harmonic analysis has been attempted, leading to an estimation of the bond Gruneisen parameter.