Electrogyration properties of crystals

The article contains a brief review of works devoted to investigation of the electrogyration phenomenon in crystals, the essence of which consists in the optical activity variation or appearance under the action of an electric field. The symmetry aspects of electrogyration, its relations with accompanying electro-optical effect and thermodynamical phenomenology of electrogyration in ferroelectrics are considered. The experimental section of the review contains the data including the first experiments on electrogyration detection in dielectrics and the latest works dealing with the pseudoproper ferroelectrics. Electrogyration of certain groups of crystals is discussed in connection with their individual physical properties.