Soft modes and proton tunneling in PbHPO4, squaric acid and KH2PO4, type ferroelectrics

Abstract

It is pointed out that the huge observed differences in the soft mode frequencies of KH2PO4, PbHPO4, CsH2PO4 and squaric acid do not necessarily reflect a large difference in the proton 0—H———O tunneling frequencies but rather result from a difference in the short range correlations renormalizing the single proton O——H—O tunneling frequency.