ferrimagnetic yttrium iron garnet (YIG, Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 ) offer a desirable combination of a high Faraday rotation and low optical absorption. Cerium-and bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (CeYIG, BiYIG) have an excellent MO figure of merit (FoM, the ratio of Faraday rotation to optical absorption), [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] and bismuth iron garnet and paramagnetic terbium gallium garnet are both used in bulk optical isolators.In order to incorporate these complex oxides into photonic integrated circuits, films with high FoM must be grown onto photonic substrates and devices. Although YIG crystallizes readily on non-garnet substrates, it has a low Faraday rotation (≈+100° cm −1 at 1550 nm) [10] and FoM. Crystallization of CeYIG or BiYIG without secondary phases can be accomplished by depositing then annealing the film directly or by annealing a bilayer consisting of a YIG seedlayer placed either above or below the active MO layer. [12,13] When a seed layer is included, a top seed layer is preferable as it maximizes coupling of the MO garnet with an optical mode propagating through an underlying waveguide.Like YIG, rare earth garnets such as terbium iron garnet (TbIG) or dysprosium iron garnet [19,20] can crystallize directly on non-garnet substrates to form polycrystalline films. TbIG is a thermodynamically stable phase like YIG [21,22] which promotes garnet-phase crystallization without a seed layer. TbIG has a Faraday rotation in 1100-1550 nm wavelength range of ≈ +270 to +1000° cm −1 . [23][24][25] Bi-substituted TbIG has been grown by liquidphase epitaxy and flux methods [23][24][25][26][27] or sol-gel methods, [28] and more recently thin films of Ce-and Bi-substituted TbIG (CeTbIG, BiTbIG) were grown on Si by sputtering. [29][30][31][32][33][34] Sputtered BiTbIG with Bi substitution of 14% of the Tb sites has a Faraday rotation of ≈−500° cm −1 at 1550 nm, [29] the same sign as that of CeYIG, which at 1550 nm wavelength had a Faraday rotation of at least −3700° cm −1 . [29] CeTbIG films with Ce substituting up to 25% of the Tb sites showed a Faraday rotation above −3200 ± 200° cm −1 , [31,32] but a 44 nm thick magnetic dead layer formed between the waveguide and the CeTbIG, hindering the interaction of evanescent light with the MO garnet cladding. [32] However, the optical absorption and FoM of these Bi-and Cesubstituted TbIG materials have not yet been reported.In this paper, we report the growth, magnetic, and optical characteristics of polycrystalline thin films of TbIG, CeTbIG, and BiTbIG synthesized using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) on Films of polycrystalline terbium iron garnet (TbIG), cerium-substituted TbIG (CeTbIG), and bismuth-substituted TbIG (BiTbIG) are grown on Si substrates by pulsed laser deposition. The films grow under tensile strain due to thermal mismatch with the Si substrate, resulting in a dominant magnetoelastic anisotropy which, combined with shape anisotropy, leads to in-plane magnetization. TbIG has a compensation temperature of 253 K which is...