Observation of chiral phonons

A phonon merry-go-round Chirality is associated with the breaking of symmetry, often described as left- or right-handed behavior. Such asymmetry can be seen, for example, in the electronic responses of particular materials or the reactions between particular chemical species. Zhu et al. observed a chiral phonon mode in a monolayer of the transition metal dichalcogenide WSe 2 , detected spectroscopically as the circular dichroism of the phonon-assisted transition of holes. Phonon chirality could be used to control the electron-phonon coupling and/or the phonon-driven topological states of solids. Science , this issue p. 579