I’ll give it a shot. This is what I got from it.
Ok so this study basically discovered that atoms arranged in certain patterns will affect the orbit of electrons when the atoms vibrate. We can detect those vibrations and determine the electron’s orbit. We can manipulate materials to cause them to have this effect as well.
So we can basically use this to store and retrieve information much like we do with bits on a computer. We are using the angular momentum of atoms like bits in a computer.
We can detect the angular momentum of atoms? Wow. That sounds like the kind of data storage that you would destroy as you read it, though.
Thank you for the ELI5
The study’s innovation was using the natural symmetry and vibrations of atoms to control the orbital momentum of electrons. Atoms in a solid are tightly packed together in lattice-like structures, whose shape depends on the material. In some materials, like metals, the atoms are arranged in a cube pattern, stacking together symmetrically so that their mirror image superimposes perfectly.
In chiral materials, such as quartz, the atoms are arranged in a helical pattern, like the threads of a screw. The atoms stack together with a built-in twist with either a “left-” or “right-” handedness that can’t superimpose onto each other, a symmetry called chirality. Human hands are a classic example of chiral symmetry—hold them out with the palms facing up, then put one on top of the other. That’s chiral!
Now, onto chiral phonons. Individual atoms vibrate in place while staying in a fixed position. In symmetrical materials like metals, the atoms wiggle side-to-side. In chiral materials, the twisted lattice structure forces the atoms to naturally wobble in a screw-like pattern with right- or left-handedness.
Phonons are the collective vibrations that travel through a solid, like a ripple moving through its atoms. Chiral materials have chiral phonons. Imagine you’re in the pit at a rock concert when the ballad hits. Someone starts swaying, hands in the air, forcing their neighbor to sway, and so on until the wave pattern ripples through the crowd.
The fact that the atoms vibrate in a circular, chiral path means that the atoms themselves naturally have an angular momentum. The study is the first to show that the chiral phonons’ angular momentum is transferred directly to the electrons’ orbital angular momentum.
I need a physicist to translate to the layman. I know this is an economic optimization, but beyond that whats the application of this technology?
not my domain, so i looked the title online (the original article is in nature, and not open access, and currently not in uni, so can not access through uni wifi)
here is a theoretical version establishing physics for this effect - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.23083v1
I am also not reading the linked article, as it is too flowery for me.
so here is a tl;dr - if you know seebeck effect, this should be somewhat easy. seebeck effect is a effect where if there is a temperature gradient in a material, electricity can be generated. i will not go on about why that happens, but as a statistical argument, just keep in mind that as things are heated, they jiggle (very specific physics term, definitely not me stupidifying oscillations). if it is a “bond” between two atoms (aptly named atomic bonds), we consider a quantisation (fancy way to put number to how strong the vibration is, there is more to it, but not for now) of these oscillations as phonons. another thing is that in materials, these bond are often arranged in some special manners. for most materials, these arrangements are periodic lattices, (think junglee gym bars or rubik cube or some other periodic arrangement). in these materials, phonons can often transfer in different modes, always trapped by the ends. in some materials, these bonds can form helices, where phonons instead of going in straight line, will travel across the helix. if you know what angular momentum is then great, if not, think something with some “speed” going in circles. in that case it will have some angular momentum along the axis of that circle. coming back to main topic, here we have some phonon going across helix, having some angular momentum. now essentially this motion of phonon can create spin current. this requires us to go into separate tangent, abou what spin is, which is well hard to explain. in most materials, there are 2 types of electrons, and we just name these 2 spins up and down (and it has practically nothing to do with up or down directions). as to why there are only 2, is a really big topic we are not going into. but roughly, it is because of nature of material. in non magnetic materials, they behave same, but in magnetic materials, they do not. in some other words, you can say magnetic materials are magnetic because these 2 spins behave differently in these materials. in normal current, we have electrons going from 1 direction to another (kinda, but that is tangent to tangent, not going there). in spin current, these 2 electrons flow in opposite directions. since both are electrons, there is no charge difference created, a spin potential is created. this tudy showed that in non magnetic materials (tungsten and titanium), you could generate spin currents by “injecting” a angular momentum from quartz crystal phonon. if yo have ever heard of angular momentum conservation, this is a consequence of that, as spin current is a kind of angular momentum.
as to why this could be special, spintronics (the name for using electron spin instead of charge for generating currents and making devices) requires lower power than electronics. one of the problems was that you required special magnetic materials, this is a demonstration without magnetic materials.
in my physics world, this is big (in a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being theory of everything done, 1 being boring desk work - this is 5-7 - very big in spintronics, and reasonably big electronics), but to someone outside -not that big, like for decade(s). we made first transistors in 50s and 60s, an reasnable electronic devices (the semiconductor chips) by 70s and 80s. we made first spin transistors in 00-10s so i guess another 10 or so years before we see some industry level production.
In English?
you can check out my comment to another reply here, or here is a link https://piefed.social/post/1803401#comment_10240799
Hell yeah.
Settle down, kiteman. /s😂
