Magnetic switching of phonon angular momentum in a ferrimagnetic insulator

Abstract

Circularly polarized phonons offer a new route for mediating angular momentum in solids. However, controlling phonon angular momentum without altering the material's structure or composition remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate the non-volatile switching of angular momentum-carrying phonons by leveraging intrinsic ferrimagnetism in an insulator. We find a pair of chiral phonons with giant energy splitting reaching 20% of the phonon frequency, due to spontaneously broken time-reversal symmetry. With a moderate magnetic field, the phonon angular momentum of the two chiral phonon branches can be switched along with the magnetization. Notably, near the critical temperature, the effective phonon magnetic moment is enhanced, reaching 2.62 Bohr magneton, exceeding the moment of a magnon. A microscopic model based on phonon-magnon coupling accounts for the observations. Furthermore, we identify two types of phononic domains with opposite phonon Zeeman splitting and propose the existence of topologically protected phononic edge modes at domain boundaries. These results demonstrate effective manipulation of chiral phonons with magnetism, and pave the way for engineering chiral phononic domains on the micrometer scale.