Electric field switching of chiral phonons
Abstract
Lattice vibrations carrying angular momentum, known as chiral phonons, have emerged as a promising route to control and understand complex material properties, yet their deterministic manipulation remains largely unexplored. Here we demonstrate electric-field switching of phonon angular momentum in the technologically relevant ferroelectric BaTiO3. Using circularly dichroic resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (CD-RIXS) at the oxygen K edge, we directly probe the phonon angular momentum and compare the measured dichroism with first-principles predictions of phonon-mode chirality. We find excellent agreement, revealing a momentum-dependent circular-dichroism contrast that exhibits a reversible gyroelectric effect, stable for at least 15 hours. Our results establish a robust mechanism for non-volatile control of chiral phonons and point towards new opportunities for phonon-based information and energy technologies.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.06144,
title = {Electric field switching of chiral phonons},
author = {Michael Grimes and Clifford J. Allington and Hiroki Ueda and Carl P. Romao and Kurt Kummer and Puneet Kaur and Li-Shu Wang and Yao-Wen Chang and Jan-Chi Yang and Shih-Wen Huang and Urs Staub},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.06144},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
18 pages, 4 figures, 1 table