Chiral Phonons

Workshop, July 29th - 31st 2025

Chiral phonons are an emerging field of research focusing on the angular momentum carried by circularly polarized lattice vibrations. While physical mechanisms arising from electronic spin and orbital angular momentum are ubiquitous in solid-state physics, the role of phonon angular momentum has long only been seen in serving as a dissipation channel for the electronic system. In recent years however, an increasing number of phenomena based on phonon angular momentum has been described, including phonon Hall, phonon Zeeman, phonon Barnett, and Einstein-de Haas, as well as phonon spin Seebeck effects. The microscopic origins of these effects have often been found to be universal, which indicates that phonon angular momentum is a quantity of interest in its own right and chiral phonons need to be studied in a holistic approach.

In this workshop, we aim to bring together experts from diverse fields working on phenomena arising from phonon chirality and angular momentum. These include light scattering phenomena in chiral materials, phonon topology, transport phenomena, phonomagnetism, chirality-induced spin selectivity, ultrafast dynamics, and achiral-chiral phase transitions. Discussing chiral phonon physics in an overarching setting will promote collaborations within the community and strengthen our research efforts for the fundamental understanding of angular momentum in solids and the utilization of chiral phonons in potential applications.

This workshop is organized by SPICE as part of the Gutenberg International Conference Center (GICC) at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). The GICC is funded through the German Research Foundation’s (DFG) university allowance in the Excellence Strategy program and aims at fostering JGU as a national and international research hub. By organizing regular conferences and workshops in fields of excellent JGU research, the GICC provides a platform to build interest networks and collaborations – to promote exchange and dialog among academics and research groups from all over the world.

Organizers
Martina Basini, ETH Zurich
Dominik Juraschek, TU Eindhoven
Shuichi Murakami, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Angela Wittmann, JGU