Electron magnetic moment of transient chiral phonons in KTaO3

Journal article, 2023

High-intensity THz lasers allow for the coherent excitation of individual phonon modes. The ultrafast control of emergent magnetism by means of phonons opens up new tuning mechanisms for functional materials. While theoretically predicted phonon magnetic moments are tiny, recent experiments hint towards a significant magnetization in various materials. To explain these phenomena, we derive a coupling mechanism between the phonon angular momentum and the electron spin. This coupling introduces the transient level splitting of spin-up and spin-down channels and a resulting magnetization. We estimate this magnetization on the example of the lowest infrared active mode in the perovskite KTaO3. Our results show an electronic magnetic moment of ≈10-1μB per unit cell, depending on the doping level and electron temperature.