According to standard theory the magnetoresistance magnitude in ferromagnetic manganites crucially depends on the electron-phonon coupling strength. We showed that in La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 the phonon renormalization is strong, despite its relatively small magnetoresistance. Here, we report results of a similar inelastic neutron-scattering investigation of a closely related compound, La0.8Sr0.2MnO3, where the magnetoresistance is enhanced. We find similar phonon renormalization and dynamic CE-type polaron correlations as in La0.7Sr0.3MnO3. However, quantitative comparison of the results for the two samples shows that only polaron lifetime is well correlated with the strength of the colossal magnetoresistance.

The family of rare-earth (R) tritellurides RTe3 features charge-density-wave (CDW) order related to strongly momentum-dependent electron-phonon coupling. Similar to other CDW compounds, superconductivity is observed when the CDW order is suppressed via hydrostatic pressure [J. J. Hamlin, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 177002 (2009)10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.177002]. What sets the heavier members of the RTe3 series apart is the observation of a second CDW transition at lower temperatures having an in-plane ordering wave vector qCDW,2 [100] of almost the same magnitude but orthogonal to the ordering wave vector qCDW,1 [001] observed at higher temperatures [N. Ru, Phys. Rev. B 77, 035114 (2008)10.1103/PhysRevB.77.035114]. Here, we report an inelastic x-ray scattering investigation of the lattice dynamics of DyTe3 In particular, we show that there are several phonon modes along both in-plane directions, which respond to the onset of the CDW transition at TCDW,1=308K. Surprisingly, these soft modes close to qCDW,2=(0.68,0,0) show strong softening near TCDW,1 but do not exhibit any response to the lower-temperature transition at TCDW,2=68K. Our results indicate that the low-temperature CDW order is not just the 90° rotated analogue of the one appearing at high temperatures.

The lattice dynamics in MnFe0.95Si0.50P0.50 were investigated experimentally using Fe57 nuclear inelastic scattering and inelastic x-ray scattering across the first-order magnetic transition which occurs close to room temperature. The lattice dynamics characterization was supported by a macroscopic magnetic characterization, an x-ray diffraction study, and a hyperfine interactions characterization using Mössbauer spectroscopy. The Fe specific and the x-ray generalized density of phonon states were obtained both in the ferromagnetic and in the paramagnetic state. A prominent shift, 2meV at 20meV, in the x-ray generalized density of phonon states across the first-order magnetic transition, that involves vibrations with essentially Fe character, is revealed corroborated by a change in the local environment quantified in the isomer shift and the quadrupole splitting. Above 35meV the vibrational modes are practically insensitive to the magnetic transition. The entropy change induced by a 1T magnetic field across the magnetic transition, ∼10J/K/kg, is only a fraction of the Fe vibrational entropy change, 62(21)J/K/kg.