Phonon Chirality Induced by Vibronic-Orbital Coupling

The notion that phonons can carry pseudo-angular momentum has become popular in the last decade, with recent research efforts highlighting phonon chirality, Berry curvature of phonon band structure, and the phonon Hall effect. When a phonon is resonantly coupled to a crystal electric field excitation, a so-called vibronic bound state forms. Here, we observe angular momentum transfer of ∆ J z = ± 1 ~ between phonons and an orbital state in a vibronic bound state of a candidate quantum spin liquid. This observation has profound implications for the engineering of phonon band structure topology through chiral quasiparticle interactions.