Spontaneous decay of a soft optical phonon in the relaxor ferroelectric PbMg${}_{1/3}$Nb${}_{2/3}$O${}_3$

C. Stock, P. M. Gehring, R. A. Ewings +4

We report the spontaneous decay of a soft, optical phonon in a solid. Using neutron spectroscopy, we find that specific phonon lifetimes in the relaxor PbMg${}_{1/3}$Nb${}_{2/3}$O$_{3}…