High-performance thin-film garnet materials for Magneto-Optic and nanophotonic applications

Since the 1960's, Magneto-optic (MO) garnet materials have been studied extensively. These materials can possess world-record MO performance characteristics in terms of Faraday rotation and optical quality. Among the rear-earth-doped garnets, the Bi-substituted iron garnet is the best candidate for use as a functional material in different integrated-optics, imaging/image processing applications and also in forward-looking applications e.g. the design of metamaterials with non-reciprocal properties. We have established a set of technologies for fabricating ferrimagnetic garnet films of type (BiDy)3(FeGa)5O12 and also garnet-oxide nanocomposite (BiDy)3(FeGa)5O12 : Bi2O3 layers possessing record-high MO quality across the visible spectral range [1] using RF-magnetron sputtering and oven annealing. Our MO garnet films possess excellent optical and magnetic properties, which make them very attractive and promising for a large range of optoelectronic, photonics-related and MO imaging applications.