Phonon angular momentum Hall effect

Abstract: Spin Hall effect is the transverse flow of the electron spin in conductors under external electric field. Similarly, thermal gradient in magnetic insulators can drive a transverse flow of the spin angular momentum of magnons, which provides a thermal alternative for spin manipulation. Recently, the phonon angular momentum (PAM), which is the angular momentum of atoms as a result of their orbital motion around their equilibrium positions, has garnered attention as a quantity analogous to the magnon spin. However, can we manipulate PAM like magnon spin? Here, we show that temperature gradient generally induces a transverse flow of PAM, which we term the phonon angular momentum Hall effect (PAMHE). The PAMHE relies only on the presence of transverse and longitudinal acoustic phonons, and it is therefore ubiquitous in condensed matter systems. As a consequence of the PAMHE, PAM accumulates at the edges of a crystal. When the atoms in the crystal carry nonzero Born effective charge, the edge PAM induces edge magnetization, which may be observed through optical measurement. We believe that PAMHE provides a new principle for the manipulation of angular momenta in insulators and opens up an avenue for developing functional materials based on phonon engineering.