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CONDENSED-MATTER PHYSICS

A new twist on phonons

Many particles — both fundamental and emergent — carry angular momentum or spin. Experiments have now demonstrated that phonons can transport angular momentum, showing that they may have spin too.

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Fig. 1: Schematic of a spin current carried by a phonon.

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Correspondence to Axel Hoffmann.

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Jungfleisch, M.B., Hoffmann, A. A new twist on phonons. Nature Phys 14, 433–434 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0104-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0104-1

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