Electric-Field-Induced X-Ray Nonreciprocal Dichroism in Hematite

Abstract

Hematite ( α − F e 2 O 3 ) is a prototypical room-temperature antiferromagnet whose time-reversal-odd magnetic structure has recently attracted renewed attention. While such magnetic symmetry can be characterized in terms of higher-order multipoles beyond the magnetic dipole, their manifestation in measurable physical phenomena has remained largely elusive. In this work, we investigate x-ray absorption near the Fe K -edge of hematite under an applied electric field, which explicitly breaks space-inversion symmetry. We observe an electric-field-induced x-ray nonreciprocal linear dichroism that reflects the time-reversal-odd nature of the magnetic order. A symmetry-resolved multipole analysis attributes this response to the electric-field-induced magnetic quadrupole and the magnetic toroidal octupole induced by the applied electric field. Furthermore, numerical simulations based on density functional theory reproduce the observed spectra, including their dependence on the antiferromagnetic domain and x-ray polarization. These results indicate that electric-field-modulated x-ray absorption measurements, combined with simulations, provide a framework for identifying the higher-order multipoles contributing to measurable physical responses in time-reversal-odd antiferromagnets, thereby facilitating the investigation of hidden symmetry properties in magnetic materials.