Eur. Phys. J. B (2013) 86: 207
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2013-31034-4

Regular Article

Inverse acoustic Faraday effect in single molecule magnets

Institute for Physics of Microstructures, Russian Academy of Sciences, 603950 Nizhny Novgorod, GSP – 105, Russia

^a e-mail: vera@ipm.sci-nnov.ru

Received: 12 November 2012
Received in final form: 5 March 2013
Published online: 7 May 2013

Abstract

A theoretical study into the effect of stationary magnetization induced in a paramagnetic medium by propagation of a circularly-polarized acoustic wave is reported. We termed this magnetoacoustic phenomenon “the inverse acoustic Faraday effect” for its obvious similarity to the inverse Faraday effect in electrodynamics (magnetooptics, in particular). A phenomenological relation is established between the inverse acoustic Faraday effect and the paramagnetic acoustic Faraday rotation widely known as the acoustic Faraday effect. This relation is demonstrated for single molecule magnets. We estimated the magnetization induced by the inverse acoustic Faraday effect in single molecule magnets Mn₁₂–Ac, for the case of a hypersonic wave. This value proved sufficient for the effect to be observed experimentally.