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【Abstract】

Chirality plays a crucial role in nature, enhancing the complexity and diversity of many objects and natural phenomena. Lattice vibrations can carry pseudo-angular momentum in the form of chiral phonons, which break all mirror symmetries. The experimental observation of chiral phonons is nontrivial and highly challenging. Here, we report that chiral phonons can be induced by helical spins in a multiferroic. With circularly polarized light, we used resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) to probe these phonon excitations in Mn-doped Ni3TeO6, a multiferroic in which Mn doping gives rise to incommensurate helical magnetism with magnetic chirality. The RIXS data show giant circular dichroism in phonon excitations. We will address how the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction can drive chiral phonons through helical spins in a multiferroic.