Reply to ‘‘Comment on ‘Direct observation of relaxation modes inKNbO3andBaTiO3using inelastic light scattering’ ’’

Abstract

In the preceding Comment Fontana et al. make three assertions based on experimental facts they believe to be in contradiction with our results, and then describe results and conclusions of their own recent Raman studies. In particular, they show spectra which they believe indicate that there is a coupled relaxation-soft phonon mode of $B_2$ symmetry in orthorhombic ${\mathrm{KNbO}}_3$. In our Reply we attempt to answer their three objections in some detail, and show why we do not believe their objections to be valid. Additionally we describe the differences between their Raman measurements and ours, which show clearly that there is no evidence of a $B_2$ relaxation mode in orthorhombic ${\mathrm{KNbO}}_3$, and discuss why we think such difference may have occurred.