Chiral Phonon Diode Effect in Chiral Crystals.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35148114.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04705.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
The diode effect means that carriers can only flow in one direction but not the other. While diode effects for electron charge, spin, or photon have been widely discussed, it remains a question whether a chiral phonon diode can be realized, which utilizes the chiral degree of freedom of lattice vibrations. In this work, we reveal an intrinsic connection between the chiralities of a crystal structure and its phonon excitations, which naturally leads to the chiral phonon diode effect in chiral crystals. At a certain frequency, phonons with a definite chirality can propagate only in one direction but not the opposite. We demonstrate the idea in concrete materials including bulk Te and α-quartz (SiO<sub>2</sub>). Our work discovers the fundamental physics of chirality coupling between different levels of a system, and the predicted effect will provide a new route to control phonon transport and design information devices.