Magneto-Optical Properties of Ce-Yttrium Iron Garnet Nanoparticles Dispersed in an Epoxy Resin

摘要

Nanoparticles of Ce_xY_(3-x)Fe_5O_(12)(Ce-YIG) were prepared from coprecipitation irradiated simultaneously with ultrasonic varying the cerium substitution, x from 0.2 to 1.0. At x = 0.2, the particles calcined at 700 °C belonged to a garnet phase and were of 20 ～ 30 nm in size. However, when x is above 0.2, orthoferrite appeared as a second phase. The Ce-YIG prepared at x = 0.2 exhibited the saturation magnetization of 26 emu/g. The particles of this Ce-YIG were dispersed in an epoxy resin and then the slurry was thermoset, which resulted in a transparent composite. The magneto-optical properties of the epoxy/Ce-YIG composites were examined with varying the weight fraction of the particles from 0.01 to 0.20 wt.% in the epoxy resin. The Faraday rotation angles of the composites measured at 525 nm increased from 2.91 to 52.58° and their absorption coefficients became higher, with increasing the content of the particles. Thus, the figure of merit (FOM) of the magneto-optical properties reached a maximum value, was 15.99 at the particle content of 0.1 wt% in the composite.