Magnetic interactions have long served as the most robust and widely used approach for realizing nonreciprocity, with an externally applied magnetic field breaking time-reversal symmetry (TRS) and chiral photon–magnon interactions introducing spatial asymmetry. In this work, we investigate the chirality mechanisms essential for magnetic nonreciprocity from a unified experimental and theoretical perspective. We begin by examining conventional chiral interactions that generate chiral electromagnetic fields through specially designed structures and then place particular emphasis on synthetic chirality enabled by nontrivial phase accumulation in traveling-wave–mediated coupling systems. We establish a microscopic theoretical framework that maps field polarization onto the phase of a complex coupling strength and validate it with systematic experiments, thereby providing a consistent formalism that describes both conventional and synthetic chirality. Notably, we highlight the symmetry properties and the unique features of synthetic chirality that distinguish it from conventional nonreciprocal mechanisms.

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• Chirality
• Magnetic coupling
• Magneto-optical effect
• Non-reciprocal transmission
• Optical & microwave phenomena
• Quantum information with hybrid systems
• Coupled mode theory