I just saw a question elsewhere and have looked on the web and don't see any mention of the affect in question.

The magneto-optical affect (Kerr) polarizes light or rotates it.

The question is is there any process where polarized light has induced magnetisim?

To just add: I don't think there is on the normal metal magnet scale but that perhaps there may be something at the atomic range where light has affected the magnetic moments, etc.

MacM

i was wondering if you wouldnt mind giving a clarification. are you asking if there is any kind of induced magnetic field during the instant of polarization or are you asking about some kind of long term occurence? also, in the second part of the post, you are you asking if light can change the magnetic moment of some piece of matter? thanks

shrubby pegaus,

i was wondering if you wouldnt mind giving a clarification. are you asking if there is any kind of induced magnetic field during the instant of polarization or are you asking about some kind of long term occurence? also, in the second part of the post, you are you asking if light can change the magnetic moment of some piece of matter? thanks

I wasn't asking specifically if magnetisim is involved in polarization of light, if that is what you mean. But if you have any information that it is I would be interested in that as well.

As far as the second part. What I was saying is that I do not expect that one can shine a light on a piece of metal and cause it to be come a magnet but that I felt there might be situations where at the atomic level light (an EM wave) could induce shift or change in the atoms magnetic properties.

Hope this clarifies the general question at hand.

Thanks for responding.

When an electromagnetic wave travels through the electron cloud of an atom it causes the cloud to briefly oscillate at the frequency of the wave. I don't know if that's what you're looking for or not...

Nasor,

When an electromagnetic wave travels through the electron cloud of an atom it causes the cloud to briefly oscillate at the frequency of the wave. I don't know if that's what you're looking for or not...

Partially. ore spefically are there cases where this alters the magnetic moment and is there any relation to the lights polarization or rotation in the jprocess.

Thanks.

MacM

thanks for the clarification

light can infact change the magnetic moment of a material. an example of this can be seen in quantum dots. as an undergrad i did some research in this. i used CdSe qdots and measured the dipole moments. an electron -hole pair is created when the photon is absorbed. this changes the magnetic moment. when the pair recombines another photon of a diffferent wavelength is emitted. the magnetic moment is then restored to its original value. along with this, you can put the dots in an electric field which will induce a further change in the magnetic moment. it is pretty interesting. there should be a paper published on this pretty soon.

Shrubby Pegasus,

Thank you. that was exactly what I was looking for.