Inverse Faraday effect in conducting crystals caused by a broken mirror symmetry

We consider how the absence of mirror crystal symmetry influences electron kinetics of polar metals, semiconductors, and asymmetric semiconductor hererostructures, as well as some layered antipyroelectric high-T-c compounds. We find that illumination of such crystals by circularly polarized infrared light should induce a permanent spin orientation of current carriers in an amount proportional to ic(c . epsilon X epsilon*), where epsilon is the polarization vector, and c is a unit vector directed either along the polar or antipyroelectric axis or perpendicular to the semiconductor heterostructure.