Universal behavior of low-temperature heat capacity of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene thermoplastic polymer and its composite with graphene oxide

The low-temperature dependence of the heat capacity of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) polymer and its composite with thermally reduced graphene oxide was studied. The existence of a so-called “boson peak” characteristic of orientational and structural glasses was demonstrated. The boson peak appears in the form of a local maximum in the heat capacity curve displayed as C/T3 vs T at Tmax = 3.52 K. It was found that for both ABS polymer and its composite, as well as for a number of other substances of a crystalline and amorphous nature, the manifestation of the anomaly of the boson peak in the heat capacity has a universal character that is described by an empirical function Δ*. The value of Δ* depends on the magnitude of the anomaly in the heat capacity and the temperature of the boson peak manifestation. Thus, this study provides new physical information about the possible causes of the boson peak appearance in disordered materials and indicates the universality of boson peak anomaly for substances with short- and long-range order.