Spin effects: Chiral phonons excited by the circularly polarized terahertz light pulses generate ultrafast magnetization in cerium fluoride. Fluorine ions (red, fuchsia) are set into motion by circularly polarized terahertz light pulses (yellow spiral), where red denotes the ions with the largest motion in the chiral phonon mode. The cerium ion is represented in teal. The compass needle represents the magnetization induced by the rotating atoms. (Courtesy: Mario Norton and Jiaming Luo/Rice University)
When a material’s atomic lattice vibrates, it produces quasiparticles known as phonons, or quantiz
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Isabelle Dumé
is a contributing editor to Physics World