Led by TI-FRIS Fellow Taichi Goto, associate professor at Tohoku University’s Research Institute of Electrical Communication (RIEC), a research team from Tohoku University and Kyocera Corporation has developed a new magneto-optical material - a nanocomposite magnetic garnet film - that can be deposited directly onto silicon substrates while delivering a magneto-optical figure of merit four times higher than conventional polycrystalline films. Using this material, the team demonstrated a monolithically integrated optical isolator on a silicon chip that matches the performance of conventional devices but with a far simpler, seed-layer-free structure. The breakthrough opens a practical path toward large-scale deployment of silicon photonics in AI-era data centers.

Figure: Electron microscopy images of the nanocomposite magnetic garnet film. ©Taichi Goto

The findings were published in ACS Applied Optical Materials on June 12th and selected as an ACS Editors' Choice, a distinction awarded daily to one peer-reviewed article from across the ACS journal portfolio based on its broad scientific and public interest. Editors' Choice articles are made freely available to readers worldwide.

Publication Details:

Title: Nanocomposite Garnet-Enabled Monolithically Integrated Magneto-Optical Isolator Using an Asymmetric Mach−Zehnder Interferometer

Authors: Tomoya Sugita, Hibiki Miyashita, Reona Motoji, Dan Maeda, Hiroki Yamamoto, Yuki Yoshihara, Kazushi Ishiyama, and Taichi Goto*

Journal: ACS Applied Optical Materials (ACS Editors' Choice selection)

DOI: 10.1021/acsaom.6c00176

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaom.6c00176