Plasmon resonance enhancement of Faraday rotation of liquid phase epitaxy grown garnet films populated with gold nanoparticles on the film surfaces.

Enhancement of the Faraday rotation of rare-earth iron garnet thin films offers the promise for development of compact and higher performance polarization dependent optical devices. Faraday rotation enhancement has been achieved utilizing strong localized electric fields induced by the excitation of plasmon resonances in gold nanoparticles deposited on garnet films. This paper presents experimental results that reveal strong Faraday rotation enhancement in bismuth-doped garnet films with gold nanoparticles of various dimensions and separations deposited on the epitaxial films. Stronger enhancements can be obtained by increasing the height and relative spacing between the nanoparticles formed on the garnet film surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]