Researchers demonstrate chiral acoustic phonons influencing light interactions in α-quartz, suggesting implications for spintronics.
Chiral Acoustic Phonons In their Research Article (DOI: 10.1002/adma.202511289), Changsoo Kim, Chanyong Hwang, and co-workers report the existence of chiral acoustic phonons in the right- and left-handed chiral structures of α-quartz and demonstrate the conservation of pseudoangular momentum that governs their inelastic interactions with light. According to the pseudoangular-momentum selection rule, circularly polarized light of a given helicity couples exclusively to chiral phonons rotating in the corresponding direction, as verified through Brillouin light-scattering measurements. This work provides microscopic evidence for chiral acoustic phonons and suggests potential synergies with spintronics and orbitronics that exploit electron angular momentum.
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Kim et al. (2026) studied this question.
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