Bismuth-substituted Yttrium Iron Garnet Research Articles

Magneto-optical epitaxial bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet thin films on a diamagnetic substrate for low temperature applications

The uprising interest in the integration of the magneto-optical iron garnets into the field of quantum information processing imposes requirements for the damping parameter and optical properties at low temperatures. Typically, high quality iron garnet films are mostly grown epitaxially on the paramagnetic substrates that have rare-earth elements in its composition, which leads to an increase of their magnetic damping at temperatures below 100 K. Here, we epitaxially grew magneto-optical ferromagnetic garnet films on a diamagnetic yttrium scandium gallium garnet substrate to demonstrate narrow ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) linewidth at temperature range from 300 K to 4 K. The maximum Faraday angle measured at wavelength of 660 nm is ΘF = 0.34 ⋅103 deg/cm at 65 K. The FMR linewidth of the iron garnet film gets slightly larger as temperature decreases, but still remains at a level of 35 Oe at 4 GHz even at 4 K. The investigated iron garnet thin films grown on diamagnetic substrates can be successfully implemented in low-temperature technological applications that require low damping and high magneto-optical response.

Damping and Interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction in Thulium Iron Garnet/Bismuth-Substituted Yttrium Iron Garnet Bilayers.

Thin films of ferrimagnetic iron garnets can exhibit useful magnetic properties, including perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) and high domain wall velocities. In particular, bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (BiYIG) films grown on garnet substrates have a low Gilbert damping but zero Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), whereas thulium iron garnet (TmIG) films have higher damping but a nonzero DMI. We report the damping and DMI of thulium-substituted BiYIG (BiYTmIG) and TmIG|BiYIG bilayer thin films deposited on (111) substituted gadolinium gallium garnet and neodymium gallium garnet (NGG) substrates. The films are epitaxial and exhibit PMA. BiYIG|TmIG bilayers have a damping value that is an order of magnitude lower than that of TmIG, and BiYIG|TmIG|NGG have DMI of 0.0145 ± 0.0011 mJ/m2, similar to that of TmIG|NGG. The bilayer therefore provides a combination of DMI and moderate damping, useful for the development of high-speed spin orbit torque-driven devices.

Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in Bi-substituted yttrium iron garnet films

Magnetic garnet thin films exhibiting perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) and ultra-low damping have recently been explored for applications in magnonics and spintronics. Here, we present a systematic study of PMA and magnetic damping in bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Bi-YIG) films grown on sGGG (111) substrates by pulsed laser deposition. Films with thicknesses ranging from 5 to 160 nm are investigated. Structural characterization using x-ray diffraction and reciprocal space mapping demonstrates the pseudomorphic growth of the films. The films exhibit perpendicular magnetic anisotropy up to 160 nm thickness, with the zero-magnetic field state changing from fully saturated for low thicknesses to a dense magnetic stripe pattern for thicker films. The films show a ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) linewidth of 100–200 MHz with a Gilbert damping constant of the order of 4×10−3. The broad FMR linewidth is caused by inhomogeneities of magnetic properties on micrometer length scales.

Fabrication of BixY3-xFe5O12 thin films by thermal decomposition of metal oleates

Metal organic decomposition (MOD) for the metal oxides thin films fabrication has been used in various studies over the past 30 years. MOD is a simple and inexpensive method for manufacturing optical grade polycrystalline thin films, including bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet. We present a variant of the previously described MOD method and discuss a chemical route for fabricating thin porous oxide films with a thicknesses of more than 100 nm, which non-epitaxially crystallized on fused silica substrates into BixY3-xFe5O12 layers (x = 0.5 and 1.5). Studies of the structural and magneto-optical properties of the layers show that the garnet layers crystallized under optimal conditions are characterized by high values of the specific Faraday rotation. Importantly, crystallization can be done locally by laser irradiation, and wet etching makes possible to remove non-crystallized areas, thus extending microfabrication capabilities.

Faraday rotator based on a silicon photonic crystal slab on a bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet thin film

We report the design of an ultrathin Faraday rotator consisting of a silicon photonic crystal (PhC) slab on a bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Bi:YIG) thin film. By directing light into guided modes in the Bi:YIG layer via diffraction in the PhC layer, we numerically demonstrate a Faraday rotation angle of ∼45° at a telecom wavelength with a Bi:YIG layer thickness of only ∼500 nm. This structure permits a high light transmittance of about 70%, enabled by electromagnetically induced transparency. The proposed design only requires nanopatterning of the Si layer, providing a viable route to practical ultrathin Faraday rotators.

Crystal orientation dependent spin pumping in a Bi0.1Y2.9Fe5O12/Pt interface

Ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) based spin pumping is a versatile tool to quantify the spin-mixing conductance and spin-to-charge conversion (S2CC) efficiency of ferromagnet–normal metal (FM/NM) heterostructures. The spin-mixing conductance at the FM–NM interface can also be tuned by the crystal orientation symmetry of epitaxial FM. In this work, we study the S2CC in epitaxial bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Bi0.1Y2.9Fe5O12) thin-film Bi–YIG (100 nm) interfaced with heavy metal platinum (Pt, 8 nm) deposited by pulsed laser deposition on different crystal orientations of Gd3Ga5O12 substrates, i.e. [100] and [111]. The crystal structure and surface roughness characterized by x-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy measurements establish epitaxial Bi–YIG [100] and Bi–YIG [111] orientations, and atomically flat surfaces, respectively. The S2CC quantification was realized using two complementary techniques, namely (i) FMR-based spin pumping and the inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE) at GHz frequencies and (ii) temperature-dependent spin Seebeck measurements. The FMR-ISHE results demonstrate that the [111]-oriented Bi–YIG/Pt sample shows significantly higher values of spin mixing conductance ((2.31 ± 0.23) × 1018 m−2) and spin Hall angle (0.01 ± 0.001) as compared to the [100]-oriented Bi–YIG/Pt. Longitudinal spin Seebeck measurements reveal that the [111]-oriented sample has a higher spin Seebeck coefficient (106.40 ± 10 nV mm−1 K−1). The anisotropic nature of the spin-mixing conductance and spin Seebeck coefficient in the [111] and [100] orientations are discussed using the magnetic environment elongation along the surface normal or parallel to the growth direction. Our results aid in understanding the role of crystal orientation symmetry in S2CC-based spintronics devices.

Praseodymium-dopant effect on bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet films on fused silica glass substrate at the 1310 and 1550-nm wavelengths

The optical and magneto-optic (MO) properties of the praseodymium (Pr)-dopant effect on bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Bi:YIG) films coated on fused silica glass substrates by using the metal-organic-decomposition (MOD) method with chemical solutions were investigated at the 1310 and 1550-nm wavelength regions. The maximum Faraday rotation angle of the Pr-codoped Bi:YIG (Pr,By:YIG) film was observed to be 0.09 and 0.046 deg/μm at the wavelengths of 1310 and 1550 nm, respectively, when the film was annealed at a temperature of 750 °C, while those of the plain Bi:YIG film were 0.059 and 0.039 deg/μm. More than 50% improvement in the Faraday rotation value of the Pr,Bi:YIG film was observed compared to that of the Bi:YIG film at the 1310 nm wavelength. The absorption coefficient of the Pr,Bi:YIG film was comparable to that of the Bi:YIG film. Therefore, the Pr,Bi:YIG film prepared with the MOD method is potentially useful for MO applications such as optical isolators and circulators.

Anomalous Picosecond Optical Transmittance Dynamics in Au-Bi:YIG Hybrid Metasurface

The sub- and picosecond optical response dynamics of the metal–dielectric metasurface based on gold nanospheres placed in a layer of bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet has been studied via the pump–probe femtosecond spectroscopy with time resolution. It is shown that the plasmon modes of the metasurface demonstrate bulk gold dynamics, while the observed relaxation of the polariton mode is slowed down by several picoseconds. The difference arise because of the detection of different processes at the wavelengths of the plasmon and polariton modes by the probe beam.

Concept of the Optomagnonic Logic Operation

We present the concept of the optomagnonic logic gate, where interference of spin waves excited by femtosecond laser pulses at multiple points by the inverse Faraday effect in a bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet film plays a decisive role. The resulting spin-wave distribution is determined by constructive and destructive interference, which is controlled by the polarization of laser sources. A variable platform with a spatial light modulator is used to control the overall spin-wave distribution by manipulating the arrangement of the local spin-wave sources. We demonstrate the experimental optical excitation of backwards volume magnetostatic spin waves at multiple points and use wavelet analysis and micromagnetic numeric simulations to analyze them. Simulations provide an excellent agreement with the experimental data and are further used to model the magnon logical gate (xnor) based on optically excited spin-wave interference.

Micron-scale crystallization of Bi:YIG by laser rapid thermal annealing at controlled atmosphere

Rapid thermal annealing (RTA) at 800–900 °C in air atmosphere is commonly used to crystallize bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Bi:YIG) deposited by vacuum evaporation techniques or metal–organic decomposition. However, the conventional RTA leads to undesirable effects in applications where Bi:YIG is the constituent material of a nano- or microstructure. Here we report on an approach to Bi:YIG local crystallization by a focused continuous wave laser beam (LRTA). The structural and optical properties of micron-sized Bi:YIG stripes crystallized in air, oxygen, nitrogen and argon atmospheres are discussed. The demonstrated LRTA can find practical applications for Bi:YIG monolithic integration on non-garnet substrates.

Magnetically controllable holographic encryption based on a magneto-optical metasurface

As a flexible and compact nanophotonic device, the metasurface exhibits excellent potential in holographic display and optical information encryption. However, most metasurfaces are passive devices due to the limitations of fixed material properties and structural components. Magneto-optical metasurface is a hybrid device that integrates tunable functional material with elaborately designed nanostructures. It can realize dynamic modulation of the properties of light since the permittivity tensor for the magneto-optical material can be changed by applying an external magnetic field. Here, we propose a tunable metasurface composing metallic nanohole arrays with a bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet interleave layer and a metallic film underlayer placed on a glass substrate. The magneto-optical metasurface can achieve dynamic switchable holographic display in different polarization channels via magnetic field control based on the optical rotation of magnetic material and the complex amplitude modulation of the elaborately designed nanoholes. This feature provides a novel approach for the construction of an active tunable metasurface, which can improve the information storage capacity and security of the device. This concept is expected to be applied to various dynamic modulation fields, such as magnetically tunable lens, beam shaping, and optical information encryption.

Crystallization of Bismuth-Substituted Yttrium Iron Garnet under Low-Energy High-Repetition Rate Femtosecond Laser Pulses

Femtosecond laser crystallization of magneto-optical bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Bi/YIG) from an oxide film synthesized by the metal–organic decomposition method was demonstrated and studied. The maximum of the specific Faraday rotation of Bi/YIG films crystallized by laser pulses and that crystallized by conventional thermal annealing was shown to be 11 deg/μm at 515 nm for both types. In cases where Bi/YIG is a functional layer of a multilayered structure on a substrate, the proposed approach allows us to overcome limitations related to overheating of the structure and the substrate occurring during conventional high-temperature annealing.

Design of Nanoarchitectures for Magnetoplasmonic Biosensing with Near-Zero-Transmittance Conditions.

Nanostructures exhibiting large transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect (TMOKE) are required for magnetoplasmonic biosensing if the aim is the minituarization and integration into microfluidic devices. In this work, we present a general strategy to design nanoarchitectures with enhanced TMOKE, which consist of an arrangement of gold ribs deposited on an magneto-optical (MO) dielectric slab of Bi:YIG (bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet) with a SiO2 substrate surrounded by water. Using the finite element method (FEM), we demonstrate numerically that the near-zero-transmittance condition is the most important requirement for high TMOKE values. This can be reached through geometric optimization of the nanoarchitecture by tuning the period, height, and width of the grating, thus leading to resonances at wavelengths where the MO dielectric slab has high MO activity. We also show that the TMOKE amplitude can be further increased if losses in metal ribs are reduced. For a magnetoplasmonic grating with optimized geometry, we demonstrated the potential detection of biologically relevant analytes with sensitivity in the order of 102 nm/RIU (refractive index unit). Since the nanoarchitecture proposed is experimentally feasible with, e.g., nanolithography techniques, one may expect that the design strategy may inspire the development of efficient magnetoplasmonic sensing platforms.

On the fabrication of one-dimensional magnetophotonic crystals from various oxides and metal–organic decomposition-made Bi0.5Y2.5Fe5O12

We demonstrate an approach for the fabrication of one-dimensional magnetophotonic crystals (1D MPCs) that are composed of electron beam evaporation-deposited Bragg mirrors (BMs) and a bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet layer made by metal–organic decomposition. Since such a garnet layer is crystallized at high temperatures, changes in structural and optical properties of BMs caused by annealing are studied. By subjecting single layers of SiO2, HfO2, ZrO2, and Ta2O5 to annealing, we found changes in their optical constants and thicknesses and interpreted stop band shifts in spectra of BMs. The ZrO2/SiO2 pair was found to be resistant to annealing and was used for 1D MPC fabrication. The resulting 1D MPCs were shown to exhibit Faraday rotation enhancement by an order of magnitude at a wavelength of the Fabry–Perot resonance.

Manipulating the photonic Hall effect with hybrid Mie-exciton resonances

We examine the far-field optical response, under-plane wave excitation in the presence of a static magnetic field, of core-shell nanoparticles involving a gyroelectric component, either as the inner or the outer layer, through analytic calculations based on appropriately extended Mie theory. We focus on absorption and scattering of light by bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Bi:YIG) nanospheres and nanoshells, combined with excitonic materials such as organic-molecule aggregates or two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenides, and discuss the hybrid character of the modes emerging from the coupling of the two constituents. We observe the excitation of strong magneto-optic phenomena and explore, in particular, the response and tunability of a magneto-transverse light current, indicative of the photonic Hall effect. We show how interaction between the Bi:YIG and excitonic layers leads to a pair of narrow bands of highly directional scattering, emerging from the aforementioned hybridization, which can be tuned at will by adjusting the geometrical or optical parameters of the system. Our theoretical study introduces optically anisotropic media as promising templates for strong coupling in nanophotonics, offering a means to combine tunable magnetic and optical properties, with potential implications both in the design of all-dielectric photonic devices but also in novel clinical applications.

Broadband Enhancement of Faraday Effect Using Magnetoplasmonic Metasurfaces

Magnetooptical Faraday effect enables ultrafast photonic devices based on nonreciprocal polarization rotation; however, the intrinsic weakness of Faraday effect prevents miniaturization and practical applications of nonreciprocal photonic devices. Magnetoplasmonics offers new mechanisms for enhancing magnetooptical effects using surface plasmon resonances, which generally have narrow bandwidths. Using finite-difference time-domain modeling, we demonstrate a magnetoplasmonic metasurface, which remarkably enhances the Faraday effect in a wide spectral range. While Faraday rotation in a bare bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet film is below 0.02° in the studied range of 600–1600 nm, the proposed metasurface yields few degrees of rotation in a broad band with a maximum exceeding 6.5°, which indicates about three orders of magnitude enhancement. We also show that by optimizing the configuration of the system including the geometry and excitation parameters, the metasurface response and operation band can be tuned further, and rotation values higher than 20° can be achieved. Finally, we present guidelines for designing magnetoplasmonic metasurfaces.

Mode conversion characteristics of multimode magneto-optical Bragg diffraction cells

We study the dependence of magneto-optical (MO) coupling coefficients on the modal fields for the design of multi-mode MO Bragg cells. The mode conversion and diffraction efficiencies between the same order TM and TE modes can theoretically be up to about 98% by adjusting the excitation frequency of the fundamental-mode magneto-static forward volume wave (MSFVW) in the bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet film at the optimized thickness and length. The different order mode conversion is also available by means of the higher-mode MSFVWs. The resulting mode conversion-based switch function is discussed.

Magneto-optical properties of spin-coated bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet films on silicon substrates at 1550-nm wavelength

Bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Bi:YIG) films were prepared by using spin coating processes with metal-organic-decomposition-method-based solutions on crystalline silicon (Si) substrates, and their magneto-optic properties at the 1550-nm wavelength region were investigated by performing various thermal treatments. The maximum Verdet constant of the Bi1Y2Fe5O12 film on the Si substrate with a middle buffer layer of Bi2Y1 Fe5 O12 was measured to be 1 072 038°/T/m at 1550-nm wavelength in the unsaturated linear magnetization region by accounting for the negative Verdet constant of the silicon substrate. The optimum thermal treatment condition was observed at the maximum annealing temperature of 700 °C and the annealing speed of 3 °C/min. These spin coating enabled processes may be included to the conventional complementary metal-oxide semiconductor fabrication processes to demonstrate integrated optical waveguide-type isolators on silicon-on-insulator wafers.

Bound States in the Continuum in Magnetophotonic Metasurfaces

We analyze the enhancement mechanisms of magneto-optical effects in all-dielectric metasurfaces caused by the bound state in the continuum resonance. In a structure under study, a square lattice of bismuth substituted yttrium iron garnet nanodisks with an air hole displaced away from the disk axis, magneto-optical polarization and intensity effects reach 0.7° and 22%, respectively.

Near-field mechanism of the enhanced broadband magneto-optical activity of hybrid Au loaded Bi:YIG.

We unravel the underlying near-field mechanism of the enhancement of the magneto-optical activity of bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet films (Bi:YIG) loaded with gold nanoparticles. The experimental results show that the embedded gold nanoparticles lead to a broadband enhancement of the magneto-optical activity with respect to the activity of the bare Bi:YIG films. Full vectorial near- and far-field simulations demonstrate that this broadband enhancement is the result of a magneto-optically enabled cross-talking of orthogonal localized plasmon resonances. Our results pave the way to the on-demand design of the magneto-optical properties of hybrid magneto-plasmonic circuitry.