Magnetic Control of Chiral Hybridized Phonon Magnetic Moments in Ferrimagnets Fe2-xZnxMo3O8
Dr. Raman Sankar and his group, in collaboration with Prof. Kwang-Yong Choi at Sungkyunkwan University (Republic of Korea) investigated the Chiral magneto-phononic modes—hybridized vibrational states that carry angular momentum through coupling with magneticdegrees of freedom—offer a novel route for controlling magnetism and enabling topological phononics. Here, we report themagnetic switching of these hybridized chiral phonons, ZnxFe2-xMo3O8 , using helicity-resolved magneto-Raman spectroscopy.By tuning the Zn concentration across antiferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic regimes, we uncover two key phenomena: (i) agiant, spontaneous zero-field splitting (∼10 cm−1 ) of the doubly degenerate E2 hybridized phonon modes in the ferrimagneticstate, and (ii) a field-induced Zeeman effect in the antiferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases. The phonon splitting in theferrimagnetic phase exhibits a pronounced asymmetry with respect to the applied field direction and shows a strong correlationwith magnetization, highlighting a selective phonon-magnon coupling and the emergence of large effective magnetic momentsdriven by magnetization. Our results demonstrate that chiral hybridized phonons can be dynamically controlled through theirintrinsic entanglement with magnon and spin degrees of freedom, enabling the tuning of effective magnetic moments viamagnetization and external magnetic fields. These findings establish ZnxFe2-xMo3O8 as a compelling platform for exploring novelmagneto-phononic phenomena.
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Journal Links: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202512707