PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Gehring, P. M. AU - Xu, Zhijun AU - Stock, C. AU - Xu, Guangyong AU - Parshall, D. AU - Harriger, L. AU - Gehring, C. A. AU - Li, Xiaobing AU - Luo, Haosu TI - Comment on “Giant electromechanical coupling of relaxor ferroelectrics controlled by polar nanoregion vibrations” AID - 10.1126/sciadv.aar5066 DP - 2019 Mar 01 TA - Science Advances PG - eaar5066 VI - 5 IP - 3 4099 - http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/3/eaar5066.short 4100 - http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/3/eaar5066.full SO - Sci Adv2019 Mar 01; 5 AB - Manley et al. (Science Advances, 16 September 2016, p. e1501814) report the splitting of a transverse acoustic phonon branch below TC in the relaxor ferroelectric Pb[(Mg1/3Nb2/3)1−xTix]O3 with x = 0.30 using neutron scattering methods. Manley et al. argue that this splitting occurs because these phonons hybridize with local, harmonic lattice vibrations associated with polar nanoregions. We show that splitting is absent when the measurement is made using a different neutron wavelength, and we suggest an alternative interpretation.