Observation of magnetochiral birefringence - art. no. 183003

We report the observation of magnetochiral birefringence in a ring laser co nfiguration for two different chiral compounds. Such a setup allows isolati on of true magnetochiral variation of the refractive index independent of a ssociated polarization effects. The change in refractive index Deltan is me asured to be 10(-10) in limonene at 488 nm with a magnetic field of 1.3 kG. This value, characterizing the fundamental magnetochiral anisotropy, is in agreement with earlier theoretical predictions.