Heat Flow in Glasses on a Picosecond Timescale

The transient thermal properties of amorphous materials have been the subject of several recent investigations [1–4]. These experiments have mainly been designed to study the time-dependence of the specific heat at low temperature (T≤2K) on time scales ≥0.1µsec. In this paper we describe a new technique which enables measurements of thermal properties to be made on a time scale into the picosecond range, and we present preliminary results of measurements of this type.