Dysprosium Substituted Ce:YIG Thin Films for Temperature Insensitive Integrated Optical Isolator Applications.

Zixuan Wei,Longjiang Deng,Jun Qin,Lei Bi,Wei Yan

doi:10.3390/ma15051691

Abstract

Magneto-optical isolators are key components in photonic systems. Despite the progress of silicon-integrated optical isolators, the Faraday rotation of silicon-integrated magneto-optical materials, such as cerium-doped yttrium iron garnet (Ce:YIG), show a strong temperature dependence, limiting the temperature range for integrated nonreciprocal photonic device applications. In this work, we report dysprosium substituted Ce:YIG thin films (Dy2Ce1Fe5O12, Dy:CeIG) showing a low temperature coefficient of Faraday rotation. A temperature insensitive range of the Faraday rotation is observed in between 25 °C to 70 °C for this material, compared to 20% variation of the Faraday rotation in Ce:YIG thin films. A Dy:CeIG based temperature insensitive silicon-integrated optical isolator operating in the temperature range of 23 °C to 70 °C is experimentally demonstrated.

Highlights

Integrated magneto-optical (MO) isolators and circulators are key components for silicon-integrated photonic circuits (PICs) [1,2,3]
On-shelf bulk optical isolators or circulators using bismuth-doped rare earth iron garnet materials usually show a high performance in the temperature range from −20 ◦ C to 70 ◦ C
cerium-doped yttrium iron garnet (Ce):YIG show a stronger temperature dependence of the Faraday rotation, leading to large drift of the operation wavelength as a function of temperature [10,11]. This problem is prominent for phase-sensitive devices such as the Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) based optical isolators, which influences both the isolation ratio and insertion loss, resulting in a narrow operation temperature range

Summary

Introduction

Integrated magneto-optical (MO) isolators and circulators are key components for silicon-integrated photonic circuits (PICs) [1,2,3]. Rare earth-doped yttrium iron garnet (RIG) is the most widely-used magneto-optical material in integrated MO devices. On-shelf bulk optical isolators or circulators using bismuth-doped rare earth iron garnet materials usually show a high performance in the temperature range from −20 ◦ C to 70 ◦ C. Ce:YIG show a stronger temperature dependence of the Faraday rotation, leading to large drift of the operation wavelength as a function of temperature [10,11]. This problem is prominent for phase-sensitive devices such as the Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) based optical isolators, which influences both the isolation ratio and insertion loss, resulting in a narrow operation temperature range

Methods

Results

Conclusion