Directions of scientific research throughout the period of existence of the department covered a wide range of problems of solid state physics. They include:
Over the time of department existence a number of new properties of magnetically ordered crystals were revealed. Among them are: – influence of antiferromagnetic spin correlations on the electric-dipole absorption of light at electron transitions in d-shell and excitonic character of excitations within the d-shell of magnetic ions,
two-magnon absorption of electromagnetic waves,
exciton-magnon absorption and two-magnon light scattering,
magnetooptic recording of parametrically excited magnons in multi-sublattice ferrimagnet,
observation of the new magneto-optic effects: birefringence of the linearly polarised light depending linearly on magnetic field strength and magnetic rotation of the polarisation plane of light quadratic to magnetic field (quadratic Faraday effect) with phenomenological analysis of these effects as probably occurring in magnetically ordered crystals which are described by Shubnikov magnetic symmetry groups,
the first optical visualization of collinear antiferromagnetic domains (otherwise, 180-degree or time-reversed domains),
manifestation of the effects of interaction of ferromanetic and antiferromagnetic domain structures at the spin-orientation phase transitions,
the first direct visual investigations of coercive behavior of the collinear antiferromagnetic domain walls and their kinetic properties as defects creating nucleus at spin-orientation phase transitions,
demonstration of ability of photoinduced effects to influence the creating and switching the antiferromagnetic domains and formation of given antiferromagnetic domain structures,
creating the non equilibrial dynamic crystal structures in paramagnetic magnetoelastic crystals by exciting the spin vibrations at super-high frequency electromagnetic field in conditions close to critical for the structural phase transition induced by magnetic field,
revealing sensitive to magnetic field incommensurate crystal phase in paramagnetic layered double rare earth molybdate crystal,
detection of spontaneous phase separation in the crystals of manganites, which have the effect of colossal magnetoresistance,
detection of ultra weak ferromagnetism and anomalous hysteresis magneto-optical properties of a known magneto-electric antiferromagnetic cobalt and nickel orthophosphate crystals,
the record increase of the magneto-optical Faraday effect in a magnetic photonic crystal with a two-component magneto-optical resonator and the high temperature stability of the resonance frequency at noticeable temperature changes of its magneto-optical properties were demonstrated experimentally,
the detection of the indirect influence of spatial electron quantization in multilayer films of ferromagnetic / normal metal on their magneto-optical properties,
construction of magnetic phase diagrams of magneto-electric crystals of orthophosphates in strong magnetic fields and detecting new magneto-electric and magnetic structure properties in them.
At present, the staff of department consists of 13 persons, including 2 doctors of science and 5 philosophy doctors. The investigations are aimed at studying the magnetooptic, magnetic and electrical properties of antiferromagnetic crystals with the competition of interactions, the study of the dynamic interaction of low-energy exciton, lattice and spin excitations in layered rare earth crystal compounds, on the researches of the properties of metastable high-temperature ferroics and the study of optical, magnetic and magnetooptic properties of artificially fabricated nanostructures and double layered hydroxides with transition ions.