LAUSR

Abstract Polycrystalline Ce:YIG thin films deposited on silicon are promising material candidates for integrated nonreciprocal photonic devices. So far, the reported Faraday rotation of polycrystalline Ce:YIG thin films on silicon is much lower than that of their single crystal or epitaxial thin film counterparts, limiting the magneto-optical figure of merit, device bandwidth and fabrication tolerance. In this paper, we report the growth of Ce:YIG thin films on silicon from targets with high Ce concentration up to nominally Y 1.5 Ce 1.5 Fe 5 O 12 by pulsed laser deposition. The polycrystalline Y 1.5 Ce 1.5 Fe 5 O 12 thin film showed pure garnet phase, smooth surface roughness of 0.7 nm, a dominant Ce 3+ valence state and a bulk-like saturation magnetization of 125 emu/cm 3 at room temperature. This material shows high Faraday rotation of −6410 deg/cm at 1550 nm wavelength, exceeding that of an Y 2 Ce 1 Fe 5 O 12 epitaxial thin film on a GGG (100) substrate. However higher loss and lower figure of merit is also observed at 1550 nm wavelength compared to Y 2 Ce 1 Fe 5 O 12 thin films, possibly due to the low oxygen partial pressure during fabrication. Low deposition oxygen partial pressure is essential to enhance the Ce solubility and Ce 3+ concentration, which results in large Faraday rotation.