Surface and interfacial waves in ionic crystals

The continuum linear theory of ionic crystals is applied to develop a two-dimensional eigenvalue problem in the Stroh formalism. An integral approach is exploited to study the occurrence of surface waves along a free boundary of the crystal. Dispersion relations are obtained by separating real and imaginary parts of the governing system and various boundary conditions are examined. The problem of interfacial waves along the separation boundary between two different crystals is also outlined. Numerical computations are performed for a centrosymmetric crystal (KCl) in order to evaluate bulk wave speeds, limiting speed of surface waves and solutions to the dispersion equations for different boundary conditions.