Magnetoelectricity inV2O3

Abstract

Motivated by the recent theoretical discussions on the implications of x-ray resonant scattering and linear dichroism data, we have measured the magnetoelectric effect in ${\mathrm{V}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_3.$ We were not able to detect any effect and could fix an upper limit for the magnetoelectric susceptibility $\alpha <~0.01\mathrm{p}\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{m}.$ Moreover, we could verify that it is impossible to perform a magnetoelectric annealing on the system at the transition temperature, because of its small electrical resisitivity. This finding has precise implications on the ground-state properties of the system.