Explanation
A phonon is a quantum mechanical description of a special type of vibrational motion, in which a lattice uniformly oscillates at the same frequency. In classical mechanics this is known as the normal mode. The normal mode is important because any arbitrary lattice vibration can be considered as a superposition of these elementary vibrations (cf. Fourier analysis). While normal modes are wave-like phenomena in classical mechanics, they have particle-like properties due to the wave–particle duality of quantum mechanics.
Read more about this topic: Phonon
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