Nondegenerate Chiral Phonons in Graphene/Hexagonal Boron Nitride Heterostructure from First-Principles Calculations

Triggered by the recent successful observation of previously predicted phonon chirality in the monolayer tungsten diselenide [Science 2018, 359, 579], we systematically study the chiral phonons in the classical heterostructure of graphene/hexagonal boron nitride (G/h-BN) by first-principles calculations. It is found that the broken inversion symmetry and the interlayer interaction of G/h-BN not only open the phononic gaps but also lift the degeneracy of left-handed and right-handed chiral phonons at the first-Brillouin-zone corners (valleys). At valleys, the hybridization makes chiral phonon modes solely contributed from one individual layer. Moreover, we demonstrate that the vertical stress is effective to tune the degenerated phononic gap while keeping valley-phonon chirality of G/h-BN heterostructure, which is favorable for the Raman or ultrafast infrared spectroscopy measurement. We also analyze the pseudoangular momentum of valley-phonon modes, which provide important references for the excitation and measurement of the chiral phonons in the process of electronic intervalley scattering. Collectively, our results on the chiral phonons in the G/h-BN heterostructure system could stimulate more experimental and theoretical studies and promote the future applications on the phonon-chirality-based phononics.