Absence of toroidal moments in 'aromagnetic' anthracene

Colloidal suspensions of anthracene and other aromatic compounds have been shown to respond to a magnetic field as if they possessed a permanent magnetic moment. This phenomenon was named 'aromagnetism' by Spartakov and Tolstoi, and it was subsequently attributed to the interaction of an electric toroidal moment with a time-varying magnetic field. However, there has been no independent confirmation of the original work. Here, we have selected purified anthracene crystallites which respond to a low magnetic field and investigate how this response depends on the gradient and the time derivative of the field. We conclude that the anomaly cannot be attributed to a toroidal interaction but is due to a constant magnetic moment of the particles. Close examinations using magnetometry and scanning electron microscopy reveal metallic clusters of Fe and Ni up to a few hundred nanometres in size embedded in the anomalous crystallites. These inclusions represent 1.8 ppm by weight of the sample. The observed presence of ferromagnetic inclusions in the ppm range is sufficient to explain the anomalous magnetic properties of micron-sized anthracene crystals, including the reported optical properties of the colloidal suspensions.