The International Conference on Chiral Phonons (CPh2025) Held at Nanjing Normal University

As an emerging field, research on chiral phonons has advanced rapidly in recent years. The discovery of phonon chirality—a novel degree of freedom—has given rise to numerous intriguing physical phenomena, with its scope spanning condensed matter physics, crystallography, optoelectronics, quantum materials, and more. To promote academic exchange, scientific collaboration, and frontier exploration in this rapidly developing area, the International Conference on Chiral Phonons (CPh2025) was held from June 17 to 21 at the Suiyuan Campus of Nanjing Normal University. Hosted by Nanjing Normal University and co-organized by the University of Science and Technology of China and Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, the conference welcomed over 100 scholars from 12 countries. The event featured 24 invited talks and 13 oral presentations, and was broadcast live globally, attracting over 32,000 viewers online. The opening ceremony was chaired by Professor Lifa Zhang, Conference Chair and Dean of the School of Physics and Technology.

President Hua Guihong delivered an online address at the opening ceremony, warmly welcoming scholars from around the world. He emphasized that fundamental research serves as a driving force behind scientific and technological innovation. Upholding its educational philosophy of “Advancing Humanities, Strengthening Sciences, and Building New Engineering Disciplines,” Nanjing Normal University has long supported the development of fundamental physics. Since 2015, when Professor Lifa Zhang of Nanjing Normal University and Professor Qian Niu (then at the University of Texas at Austin) first introduced the innovative concept of “chiral phonons” in Physical Review Letters, the field has rapidly grown into a global research frontier. Its promising applications span semiconductor physics, quantum materials and computation, and chiral biochemistry. This international conference brought together leading experts in the field and fostered collaboration through invited presentations, thematic discussions, and academic exchange. It also aims to nurture the next generation of researchers, ensuring the sustainable development of chiral phonon studies and advancing the field to new heights.

The conference assembled top scientists from 12 countries, including Prof. Benedetta Flebus, Prof. Shang Ren, Prof. Yafei Ren, Prof. Sinisa Coh, Prof. Hanyu Zhu, and Prof. Andrey Baydin from the United States; Prof. Shuichi Murakami, Prof. Yoshihiko Togawa, Prof. Takuya Satoh, and Prof. Takeo Kato from Japan; Prof. Andrei Kirilyuk, Prof. Rembert Duine, and Prof. Dominik Juraschek from the Netherlands; Prof. Urs Staub and Prof. Hiroki Ueda from Switzerland; scholars Prof. Taekoo Oh and Prof. Bumchul Park from South Korea; Prof. Luis Foa Torres from Chile; Prof. Felix Hernandez from Brazil; Prof. Matteo Calandra from Italy; as well as scholars including Prof. Jie Ren, Prof. Tiantian Zhang, and Prof. Qi Zhang from China, among numerous other experts. The conference concluded with a keynote address by Professor Qian Niu, formerly of the University of Texas at Austin and now at the University of Science and Technology of China. Experts at the meeting unanimously agreed that chirality, as a newly recognized degree of freedom for phonons—one of the most fundamental carriers in condensed matter physics—opens up entirely new avenues of physical behavior. This breakthrough significantly influences the thermal, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties of solids and holds great promise for applications in next-generation optoelectronics, quantum materials, and related devices.