Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 47, 30401 (2009)
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjap/2009096

Low birefringent magneto-optical waveguides fabricated via organic-inorganic sol-gel process

¹ Laboratoire Dispositifs et Instrumentation en Optoélecronique et Microondes – EA3523, Université Jean Monnet, 23 rue Michelon, 42023 Saint-Étienne Cedex 2, France
² Laboratoire des Liquides Ioniques et Interfaces Chargées – UMR CNRS 7412, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France
³ Laboratoire Hubert Curien – UMR CNRS 5516, Université Jean Monnet, 18 rue Benoît Lauras, 42000 Saint-Étienne, France

Corresponding author: fadi.choueikani@univ-st-etienne.fr

Received: 16 December 2008
Accepted: 23 March 2009
Published online: 5 June 2009

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the study and the characterization of novel magneto-optical waveguides prepared via organic-inorganic sol-gel process. Thin silica/zirconia films doped with magnetic nanoparticles were coated on glass substrate using dip-coating technique. After annealing, samples were UV-treated. Two different techniques were used to measure their properties: m-lines spectroscopy and free space ellipsometry. Results evidence low refractive index waveguides that combine a low modal birefringence (2×10⁻⁴) with a Faraday rotation around 15 °/cm (ϕ = 0.1%). The low birefringence is obtained with a soft UV treatment and a graded intrinsic anisotropy is evidenced for films thicker than 5 μm. Therefore, we prove that the organic-inorganic sol-gel approach is very promising to realize magneto-optical waveguides with a non-reciprocal functionality such as TE-TM mode conversion.