Response to comment on "Giant electromechanical coupling of relaxor ferroelectrics controlled by polar nanoregion vibrations"

M. E. Manley, D. L. Abernathy, A. D. Christianson, J. W. Lynn
2019 Science Advances  
Gehring et al. argue that a splitting observed by us in the transverse acoustic (TA) phonon in the relaxor ferroelectric Pb[(Mg1/3Nb2/3)1−xTix]O3 with x = 0.30 (PMN-30PT) is caused by a combination of inelastic-elastic multiple scattering processes called ghostons. Their argument is motivated by differences observed between their measurements made on a triple-axis spectrometer and our measurements on a time-of-flight spectrometer. We show that the differences can be explained by differences in
more » ... he instrument resolution functions. We demonstrate that the multiple scattering conditions proposed by Gehring et al. do not work for our scattering geometry. We also show that, when a ghoston is present, it is too weak to detect and therefore cannot explain the splitting. Last, this phonon splitting is just one part of the argument, and the overall conclusion of the original paper is supported by other results.
doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaw4367 pmid:30915399 pmcid:PMC6430620 fatcat:m3i5iguon5e2jdu7nmfqetw7ie