Temperature-dependent Faraday rotation and magnetization reorientation in cerium-substituted yttrium iron garnet thin films

Enno Lage,Sohrab Redjai Sani,Andy Udo Quindeau,Roman Antos,Miroslav Kucera,Caroline A Ross,Lukas Ohnoutek,Lukas Beran,Martin Veis,Gerald F Dionne

doi:10.1063/1.4976817

Abstract

We report on the temperature dependence of the magnetic and magneto-optical properties in cerium-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Ce:YIG) thin films. Measurements of the Faraday rotation as a function of temperature show that the magnetic easy axis of thin Ce:YIG films reorients from in-plane to out-of-plane on cooling below −100 °C. We argue that the temperature-dependence of the magnetostriction and magnetocrystalline anisotropy of Ce:YIG is the dominant factor contributing to the change in easy axis direction, and we describe the changes in the magneto-optical spectra with temperature.

Highlights

We report on the temperature dependence of the magnetic and magneto-optical properties in cerium-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Ce:YIG) thin films
Thin films of Ce:YIG have been epitaxially grown by various deposition techniques on gallium gadolinium garnet (GGG) substrates[10,11] or as polycrystalline films on silicon-based substrates.[3,12,13]
Temperature-dependent studies of bulk Ce:YIG demonstrate an increase of saturation magnetization[22] and Faraday rotation[21] upon cooling which is well approximated by a linear function in the regime from room temperature (RT) to liquid nitrogen temperature

Summary

Introduction

We report on the temperature dependence of the magnetic and magneto-optical properties in cerium-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Ce:YIG) thin films. Temperature-dependent Faraday rotation and magnetization reorientation in ceriumsubstituted yttrium iron garnet thin films

Results

Conclusion