Compositional Design of Faraday Rotator Materials

Abstract

AbstractBismuth-doped rare-earth iron garnet thick films have become the material of choice for a wide variety of magnetooptic applications including optical isolators and circulators. Garnet compositional design and liquid phase epitaxial growth have been adapted to the requirements of these devices. Properties such as optical absorption, specific Faraday rotation, temperature dependence of Faraday rotation, saturation magnetization and temperature dependence of saturation magnetization can be controlled to a high degree. Introduction of nucleation induced coercivity has even allowed the elimination of a permanent bias magnet. However, in optimizing device performance and film growth, there are often tradeoffs among these properties. Material design is therefore a compromise based on the requirements of device designers.