Project description
Controlling the functional properties of solids with phonon angular momentum
Even in solids, molecules or crystals are constantly vibrating around fixed positions. Ultrashort pulses of electromagnetic radiation can modify the crystal structure of solids by resonantly driving coherent phonons (packets of vibrational mechanical energy) that exchange energy and momentum with electrons. Chiral phonons have generally been viewed as a way to dissipate electronic angular momentum rather than a way to control the properties of solids. The ERC-funded CHIRALPHONONICS project aims to investigate how phonon angular momentum can be coherently generated to control functional properties such as topological and ferroic order. Microscopic modelling with first-principles calculations could lead to novel design principles for out-of-equilibrium quantum materials.
Objective
This projects aims to establish a new paradigm in the ultrafast control of solids, by using the angular momentum of chiral lattice vibrations (chiral phonons) to manipulate, induce, and switch electronic phases.
The properties of solids are fundamentally determined by the crystal-lattice geometry. Developments of ultrashort terahertz and mid-IR pulses in the past decade have made it possible to dynamically modify the crystal structure by resonantly driving coherent phonons. These phonons exchange energy and momentum with the electrons, modifying interactions that are dependent on the distance between the atoms.
Chiral phonons, in turn, have mostly been regarded as a dissipation channel for electronic angular momentum and only recently been used for ultrafast control of solids, following seminal theoretical predictions of me and my colleagues. The reason for this is rooted in two challenges: the lack of feasible protocols to coherently excite chiral phonons across the Brillouin zone and the complexity of angular momentum coupling processes out of the equilibrium.
CHIRALPHONONICS will address these challenges by bridging the gap between phonon angular momentum theory and ultrafast dynamical simulations. My team and I will investigate how phonon angular momentum can be coherently generated coupled to electronic, spin, and orbital degrees of freedom that are connected to functional properties, including topological and ferroic order. We will combine microscopic modeling with first-principles calculations to create effective ab-initio informed models that allow us to both predict novel fundamental coupling mechanisms as well as realize quantitative materials implementations.
This research will lead to new functionalities in solids and design principles for quantum materials out of the equilibrium. Pioneering the field of ultrafast chiral phononics will open an avenue towards technologies based on phonon angular momentum switching of electronic states.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
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Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
5612 AE Eindhoven
Netherlands