SPICE Workshop on Chiral Phonons, July 29th - 31st 2025
Lifa Zhang
Phonons were traditionally considered as linearly polarized. Recently we predicted that phonons can be chiral and have angular momentum both in magnetic and nonmagnetic systems. The chiral phonons were observed in monolayer tungsten diselenide, where the phonon chirality was confirmed by the infrared circular dichroism arising from pseudoangular momentum conservation. Our further experiments showed that through the emission of a chiral phonon the momentum-dark intervalley exciton is brightened and chiral phonons can have entanglement with photons. Recently, we predicted that the chiral phonons can propagate along high-symmetry axis of 3D materials, and can show a diode effect in chiral systems, and can induce high-temperature superconductivity. We also observed a chiral-phonon-activated spin-Seebeck effect in chiral materials very recently.