We investigated the crystal structure and lattice excitations of the ternary intermetallic stannide Ca3Ir4Sn13 using neutron and x-ray scattering techniques. For T > T* ~ 38 K the x-ray diffraction data can be satisfactorily refined using the space g
roup Pm-3n. Below T* the crystal structure is modulated with a propagation vector of q = (1/2, 1/2, 0). This may arise from a merohedral twinning in which three tetragonal domains overlap to mimic a higher symmetry, or from a doubling of the cubic unit cell. Neutron diffraction and neutron spectroscopy results show that the structural transition at T* is of a second-order, and that it is well described by mean-field theory. Inelastic neutron scattering data point towards a displacive structural transition at T* arising from the softening of a low-energy phonon mode with an energy gap of Delta(120 K) = 1.05 meV. Using density functional theory the soft phonon mode is identified as a breathing mode of the Sn12 icosahedra and is consistent with the thermal ellipsoids of the Sn2 atoms found by single crystal diffraction data.
The vortex lattice (VL) in the mixed state of the stannide superconductor Yb$_{3}$Rh$_{4}$Sn$_{13}$ has been studied using small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). The field dependencies of the normalized longitudinal and transverse correlation lengths
of the VL, $xi_L/a_0$ and $xi_T /a_0$, reveal two distinct anomalies that are associated with vortex-glass phases below $mu_0H_l$~$approx$~700~G and above $mu_{0}H_h$~$sim$~1.7~T ($a_0$ is the intervortex distance). At high fields, around 1.7~T, the longitudinal correlation decreases abruptly with increasing fields indicating a weakening (but not a complete destruction) of the VL due to a phase transition into a glassy phase, below $mu_{0}H_{c_2}$(1.8 K)~$approx$~2.5~T. $xi_L/a_0$ and $xi_T /a_0$, gradually decrease for decreasing fields of strengths less than 1~T and tend towards zero. The shear elastic modulus $c_{66}$ and the tilting elastic modulus $c_{44}$ vanish at a critical field $mu_0H_l$~$approx$~700~G, providing evidence for a disorder-induced transition into a vortex-glass. A ring of scattered intensity is observed for fields lower than 700~G, $i.e.$, $mu_{0}H_{c_1}$~=~135~G~$<$~$mu_{0}H$~$<$~700~G. This low-field phenomenon is of different nature than the one observed at high fields, where $xi_L/a_0$ but not $xi_T/a_0$, decreases abruptly to an intermediate value.
