Magnetic Faraday rotation in lossy photonic structures

TL;DR

This paper explores enhancing magnetic Faraday rotation in lossy magnetic materials using optical microcavities and slow wave resonators, highlighting the advantages of slow wave resonators in mitigating absorption and birefringence issues.

Contribution

It demonstrates that slow wave resonators offer a fundamental advantage for Faraday rotation enhancement in lossy magnetic materials compared to microcavities.

Findings

Slow wave resonators significantly improve Faraday rotation in lossy magnetic materials.

Microcavities face challenges with increased absorption and birefringence.

Slow wave resonators reduce ellipticity of the output light.

Abstract

Magnetic Faraday rotation is widely used in optics and MW. In uniform magneto-optical materials, this effect is very weak. One way to enhance it is to incorporate the magnetic material into a high-Q optical resonator. One problem with magneto-optical resonators is that along with Faraday rotation, the absorption and linear birefringence can also increase dramatically, compromising the device performance. Another problem is strong ellipticity of the output light. We discuss how the above problems can be addressed in the cases of optical microcavities and a slow wave resonators. We show that a slow wave resonator has a fundamental advantage when it comes to Faraday rotation enhancement in lossy magnetic materials.