The origins of enhanced piezoelectric coupling along nonpolar crystallographic directions in ferroelectric BaTiO3 are investigated using in situ neutron spectroscopy. It is observed that an electric field applied away from the equilibrium polarizatio
n direction causes changes in the phonon spectra that lead to an increase in the interaction between the transverse acoustic and transverse optic branches (TA-TO) near the Brillouin zone center. This provides a direct lattice dynamics mechanism for enhanced electromechanical coupling, and could act as a guide for designing improved piezoelectric materials.
We present precision neutron scattering measurements of the Bose-Einstein condensate fraction, n0(T), and the atomic momentum distribution, nstar(k), of liquid 4He at pressure p =24 bar. Both the temperature dependence of n0(T) and of the width of ns
tar(k) are determined. The n0(T) can be represented by n0(T) = n0(0)[1-(T/T{lambda}){gamma}] with a small n0(0) = 2.80pm0.20% and large {gamma} = 13pm2 for T < T{lambda} indicating strong interaction. The onset of BEC is accompanied by a significant narrowing of the nstar(k). The narrowing accounts for 65% of the drop in kinetic energy below T{lambda} and reveals an important coupling between BEC and k > 0 states. The experimental results are well reproduced by Path Integral Monte Carlo calculations.
Inelastic neutron scattering measurements on the low energy spin waves in CaFe2As2 show that the magnetic exchange interactions in the Fe layers are exceptionally large and similar to the cuprates. However, the exchange between layers is ~10% of the
coupling in the layers and the magnetism is more appropriately categorized as anisotropic three-dimensional, in contrast to the two-dimensional cuprates. Band structure calculations of the spin dynamics and magnetic exchange interactions are in good agreement with the experimental data.
