Chirality-Selective Phonon Pumping by Ferroelectric Dynamics

Abstract

The discovery of chiral phonons has expanded the conventional view of lattice vibrations as passive heat carriers, opening new opportunities for phononic spintronic devices. However, their realization has been largely limited to chiral crystals or to specific regions of momentum space in certain achiral materials. Here, we propose a generic mechanism for generating propagating chiral phonons in an ordinary dielectric through the precession of the electric polarization in an adjacent ferroelectric. The polarization dynamics transfers its intrinsic angular momentum to the lattice via electrostrictive coupling, thereby pumping chirality-selective phonons whose handedness is dictated by that of the polarization precession. For a typical LiNbO$_{3}$$|$Y$_{3}$Al$_{5}$O$_{12}$ bilayer, we find that the pumping efficiency quantified by an interfacial convertance substantially exceeds those of thermally induced chiral-phonon generation in chiral crystals, owing to the strong electrostrictive coupling in ferroelectrics. Our work establishes ferroelectric dynamics as a versatile electrical source of chiral phonons and provides a general route toward electrically programmable chiral-phononic and spintronic functionalities.