Giant Faraday Rotation through Ultrasmall Fe0n Clusters in Superparamagnetic FeO-SiO2 Vitreous Films

Nakatsuka Y, Pollok K, Wieduwilt T, Langenhorst F, Schmidt MA, Fujita K, Murai S, Tanaka K, Wondraczek L (2017)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2017

Journal

Advanced Science Wiley Open Access

Book Volume: 4

Article Number: 1600299

Journal Issue: 4

DOI: 10.1002/advs.201600299

Abstract

Magnetooptical (MO) glasses and, in particular, Faraday rotators are becoming key components in lasers and optical information processing, light switching, coding, filtering, and sensing. The common design of such Faraday rotator materials follows a simple path: high Faraday rotation is achieved by maximizing the concentration of paramagnetic ion species in a given matrix material. However, this approach has reached its limits in terms of MO performance; hence, glass-based materials can presently not be used efficiently in thin film MO applications. Here, a novel strategy which overcomes this limitation is demonstrated. Using vitreous films of xFeO·(100 − x)SiO2, unusually large Faraday rotation has been obtained, beating the performance of any other glassy material by up to two orders of magnitude. It is shown that this is due to the incorporation of small, ferromagnetic clusters of atomic iron which are generated in line during laser deposition and rapid condensation of the thin film, generating superparamagnetism. The size of these clusters underbids the present record of metallic Fe incorporation and experimental verification in glass matrices.

Authors with CRIS profile

Lothar Wondraczek

Involved external institutions

Kyoto University / 京都大学 Kyōto daigaku JP Japan (JP) Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena DE Germany (DE) Leibniz-Institut für Photonische Technologien e.V. DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Nakatsuka, Y., Pollok, K., Wieduwilt, T., Langenhorst, F., Schmidt, M.A., Fujita, K.,... Wondraczek, L. (2017). Giant Faraday Rotation through Ultrasmall Fe0n Clusters in Superparamagnetic FeO-SiO2 Vitreous Films. Advanced Science, 4(4). https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.201600299

MLA:

Nakatsuka, Yuko, et al. "Giant Faraday Rotation through Ultrasmall Fe0n Clusters in Superparamagnetic FeO-SiO2 Vitreous Films." Advanced Science 4.4 (2017).

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