Enhancing temperature stability of Ce: RIG films Faraday rotation through magnetic sublattice control

Abstract Cerium doped rare-earth iron garnet (Ce: RIG) film is a promising candidate for magneto-optical devices in laser systems with giant Faraday effect; nevertheless, devices fail nonreciprocally with increasing temperature due to a negative Faraday rotation angle temperature coefficient. To mitigate this effect, the relationship between the magnetic moments of three distinct magnetic sublattices and the temperature coefficients of the Faraday rotation angle was investigated. Cerium doped holmium iron garnet (Ce: HoIG) film, where magnetic Ho 3+ occupied the dodecahedrons, exhibited an enhanced Faraday rotation angle retention at a temperature of 400 K. However, the nonmagnetic ion doping in tetrahedral and octahedral sites yielded a negligible effect. The mechanism behind this occurrence is attributed to the magnetic compensation effect, which results in a small magnetic moment temperature coefficient within the range of 300–400 K. The study not only offers strategies for designing Ce: RIG components with reduced temperature coefficient, but also presents the development of a Ce: HoIG film exhibiting promising stability in Faraday rotation angle as a function of temperature.