Magneto-optical waveguides made of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles embedded in silica/zirconia organic inorganic matrix

Fadi Choueikani (1) , François Royer (2, 1) , Damien Jamon (1, 2) , Jean Jacques Rousseau (1) , Ali Siblini (1) , Sophie Neveu (3) , Jamal Charara (4)

1 DIOM - Dispositifs et Instrumentation en Optoélectronique et micro-ondes
2 LHC - Laboratoire Hubert Curien [Saint Etienne]
3 LI2C - Liquides Ioniques et Interfaces Chargées
4 Département de Physique, Faculté des sciences I

This paper describes a way to develop magneto-optical waveguides via sol-gel process. They are made of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles embedded in a silica/zirconia matrix. Thin films are coated on glass substrate using the dip-coating technique. Annealing and UV treatment are applied to finalize samples preparation. Therefore, planar waveguides combining magneto-optical properties with a low refractive index (~ 1, 5) are obtained. M-lines and free space ellipsometry measurements show a specific Faraday rotation of 250 °/cm and a modal birefringence of 1.10−4, at 820 nm. Thus, the mode conversion efficiency can reach a maximum value around 56 %.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

Fadi Choueikani, François Royer, Damien Jamon, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Ali Siblini, et al.. Magneto-optical waveguides made of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles embedded in silica/zirconia organic inorganic matrix. Applied Physics Letters, 2009, 94 (5), pp.051113. ⟨10.1063/1.3079094⟩. ⟨ujm-00360198⟩