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Chirality in Nature

Chirality in Nature

Chirality is the most intriguing yet essential facet of nature, governing life’s biochemical processes and precision. It can be observed from a snail shell pattern in a macroscopic world to an amino acid, the minutest building block of life. Most of the snails around the world have right-coiled shells because of the intrinsic chirality in their genes. All the amino acids present in the human body exist in an enantiomerically pure state, except for glycine - the sole achiral amino acid.

Chirality

Chirality

Chirality is a term that describes the lack of mirror symmetry in an object. In other words, chiral objects cannot be superposed on their mirror images. For example, our feet are chiral, as the mirror image of the left foot, the right foot, cannot be superposed on the left foot.
Chiral objects exhibit a sense of handedness when they interact with another chiral object. For example, our left foot can only fit in the left shoe and not in the right shoe. Achiral objects — objects that have...

Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur

Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur

Chirality is most prevalent in carbon-based tetrahedral compounds, but this important facet of molecular symmetry extends to sp3-hybridized nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur centers, including trivalent molecules with lone pairs. Here, the lone pair behaves as a functional group in addition to the other three substituents to form an analogous tetrahedral center that can be chiral.
A consequence of chirality is the need for enantiomeric resolution. While this is theoretically possible for all...

¹H NMR Chemical Shift Equivalence: Enantiotopic and Diastereotopic Protons

¹H NMR Chemical Shift Equivalence: Enantiotopic and Diastereotopic Protons

Replacing each alpha-hydrogen in chloroethane by bromine (or a different functional group) yields a pair of enantiomers. Such protons are called prochiral or enantiotopic and are related by a mirror plane. Enantiotopic protons are chemically equivalent in an achiral environment. Because most proton NMR spectra are recorded using achiral solvents, enantiotopic hydrogens yield a single signal.
In chiral compounds such as 2-butanol, replacing the methylene hydrogens at C3 produces a pair of...

Spin–Spin Coupling Constant: Overview

Spin–Spin Coupling Constant: Overview

In bromoethane, the three methyl protons are coupled to the two methylene protons that are three bonds away. In accordance with the n+1 rule, the signal from the methyl protons is split into three peaks with 1:2:1 relative intensities. The methylene protons appear as a quartet, with the relative intensities of 1:3:3:1.
Qualitatively, any spin plus-half nucleus polarizes the spins of its electrons to the minus-half state. Consequently, the paired electron in the hydrogen–carbon bond must...

Prochirality

Prochirality

The concept of prochirality leads to the nomenclature of the individual faces of a molecule and plays a crucial role in the enantioselective reaction. It is a concept where two or more achiral molecules react to produce chiral products. A typical process is the reaction of an achiral ketone to generate a chiral alcohol. Here, the achiral reactant reacts with an achiral reducing agent, sodium borohydride, to generate an equimolar mixture of the chiral enantiomers of the product. For example, an...

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Spectral and Angle-Resolved Magneto-Optical Characterization of Photonic Nanostructures

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Published on: November 21, 2019

Chiral Phonons Arising from Chirality-Selective Magnon-Phonon Coupling.

Markus Weißenhofer^1,2, Philipp Rieger^1,3, M S Mrudul¹

¹Uppsala University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, P.O. Box 516, S-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden.

Physical Review Letters

|December 5, 2025

Summary

Chiral phonons emerge from magnon-phonon coupling in magnetic materials. This discovery challenges existing theories and offers new possibilities for spintronic and phononic devices.

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Area of Science:

Condensed Matter Physics
Materials Science
Quantum Mechanics

Background:

Chiral phonons are crucial for spintronics but difficult to generate and control.
Existing methods for phonon manipulation are limited.

Purpose of the Study:

To demonstrate the emergence of chiral phonons through selective magnon-phonon coupling.
To investigate the properties and potential applications of these chiral phonons.

Main Methods:

First-principles calculations to analyze hybridized magnon-phonon quasiparticle states in bcc Fe.
Quantitative analysis across the entire Brillouin zone.

Main Results:

Demonstrated emergence of truly chiral phonons in inversion-symmetric magnetic systems.
Revealed finite zero-point phonon angular momentum and anomalous thermal Hall responses.
Linked these phenomena to finite spin Berry curvatures, challenging conventional magnetoelastic interpretations.

Conclusions:

Chiral phonons can be generated via magnon-phonon coupling in magnetic materials.
These findings provide a new understanding of phonon behavior and open avenues for novel spintronic and phononic devices.