The piezochiral effect

Area of Science:

• Solid-state physics and materials science
• Crystallography and structural analysis
• Optics and photonics

Background:

• Chirality is fundamental to physics, chemistry, and biology, influencing numerous phenomena.
• Controlling chirality in solid-state systems is highly desirable but challenging due to the lack of a universal conjugate field.
• Existing methods lack continuous, two-directional tunability for chirality control.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and demonstrate a novel method for controlling chirality in solid-state systems using mechanical strain.
• To explore the potential of the piezochiral effect for tunable, two-directional chirality control.
• To establish a new paradigm for manipulating chiral properties in materials.

Main Methods:

• Symmetry analysis to predict strain-induced chirality in achiral crystals.
• Experimental verification using silver gallium sulfide (AgGaS2) crystals.
• Measurement of optical activity under applied mechanical strain.

Main Results:

• Uniaxial strain was shown to induce chirality in a broad class of achiral crystals.
• The induced handedness is tunable by altering strain direction or type (compressive/tensile).
• Experimental results in AgGaS2 confirmed the strain-induced optical activity.

Conclusions:

• The piezochiral effect provides a new, versatile scheme for rational control of chirality in solid-state materials.
• This effect enables continuous and bidirectional tuning of chirality via mechanical strain.
• Potential applications include spintronics, asymmetric catalysis, and enantioselective biosystems.