Theory of a reflection experiment for determining magnetoelectric properties of cubic antiferromagnets at optical frequencies

Abstract

Certain classes of magnetic cubic crystals may exhibit optical effects described by time-odd tensors of electric quadrupole and magnetic dipole origin. The latter is the magnetoelectric tensor at the optical frequency, Refraction phenomena in cubic antiferromagnets can be related to the electric quadrupole tensor, but not to the magnetoelectric tensor. However, this property, as well as the electric quadrupole tensor, can be determined using reflection techniques. A theory is presented of a suitable experiment in which the reflected intensity is measured for different incident and analyzed polarization states.

Key Words:

• Magnetoelectric properties
• reflection in cubic antiferromagnets.