A paper published this month on the ASC Photonics website (subscription required) highlights work of University of Minnesota and University of Glasgow, with the assistance of our own Dr. Cosmin Radu, towards the development of new types of monolithic optical isolators. This research is the latest in the two universities’ ongoing work designing isolators that can be used in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology for photonic integrated circuits (PICs).
As referenced in the paper, a Lake Shore Cryotronics VSM was used to characterize the magnetic properties of very low moment, thin-film samples of cerium-doped terbium iron (Ce:TbIG) garnet used to build the optical isolators. Specifically, optical behavior is controlled by magnetic field, so hysteresis loops of the sample were measured in the system at room temperature and in plane to confirm properties enabling the Faraday rotation required of the device material.
