Phonon anharmonicity of rutile TiO2 studied by Raman spectrometry and molecular dynamics simulations

Raman spectra of rutile titanium dioxide (TiO2) were measured at temperatures from 100 to 1150 K. Each Raman mode showed unique changes with temperature. Beyond the volume-dependent quasiharmonicity, the explicit anharmonicity was large. A new method was developed to fit the thermal broadenings and shifts of Raman peaks with a full calculation of the kinematics of three-phonon and four-phonon processes, allowing the cubic and quartic components of the anharmonicity to be identified for each Raman mode. A dominant role of phonon-phonon kinematics on phonon shifts and broadenings is reported. Force-field molecular dynamics calculations with the Fourier-transformed velocity autocorrelation method were also used to perform a quantitative study of anharmonic effects, successfully accounting for the anomalous phonon anharmonicity of the B-1g mode.