Dysprosium Substituted Ce:YIG Thin Films for Temperature Insensitive Integrated Optical Isolator Applications

Magneto-optical isolators are key components in photonic systems. Despite the progress of silicon-integrated optical isolators, the Faraday rotation of silicon-integrated magneto-optical materials, such as cerium-doped yttrium iron garnet (Ce:YIG), show a strong temperature dependence, limiting the temperature range for integrated nonreciprocal photonic device applications. In this work, we report dysprosium substituted Ce:YIG thin films (Dy2Ce1Fe5O12, Dy:CeIG) showing a low temperature coefficient of Faraday rotation. A temperature insensitive range of the Faraday rotation is observed in between 25 °C to 70 °C for this material, compared to 20% variation of the Faraday rotation in Ce:YIG thin films. A Dy:CeIG based temperature insensitive silicon-integrated optical isolator operating in the temperature range of 23 °C to 70 °C is experimentally demonstrated.