Growth and magneto‐optical characteristics of cerium‐doped terbium gallium garnet by the floating zone method

Abstract

Cerium-doped terbium gallium garnet single crystal having a large Verdet constant was grown by floating zone (FZ) method, which was suitable for the use in optical devices. The lattice parameters and the X-ray rocking curve measurement of the crystal was determined by X-ray diffraction analysis. The Verdet constant of the crystal (B = 0.55 T) at the wavelength of 632.8 nm was −165.8 rad mat room temperature, 23.7% larger than that of pure TGG (−134.0 rad m −1 T −1 ). The performance of the high optical quality and excellent magneto-optical properties of the crystal shows the great potential of using this new method to meet the increasing demand of VI-NIR Faraday rotators.

A review on magneto-optical ceramics for Faraday isolators

“…Ce 3+ [141], Ho 3+ [142], and Nd 3+ [143] in TGG crystals brought an increase of Verdet constant and similar phenomenon was also reported in TGG ceramics [144,145]. The increase of the Verdet constant is likely explained by the structural variation, magnetization dependence on the splitting of the ground configuration induced by the spin-orbit interaction, crystal field, exchange interaction, and external magnetic field [139,146].…”