Diluted magnetic semiconductors for optical sensors and nonreciprocal devices

Diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMS), also referred to as semimagnetic semiconductors, comprise a new class of materials, which consists of paramagnetic semiconductor solid solutions containing a magnetic component. Our work is devoted to the complex fundamental research of different DMS crystals, and their application in optical devices. We also performed investigations on optimizing of the chemical and component content of DMS for nonreciprocal devices and fiber optical magnetic field sensors operating at different temperatures and wavelengths (i.e 630 nm of the He-Ne laser and 670, 850, 1300 nm of laser diodes). For this purpose, apart from traditional Cd_1-xMn_xTe, solid solutions Zn_1-xMn_xTe, Cd_1-xMn_xSe, Hg _1-xMn_xTe, Cd_1-x-yHg_xMn_y Te have been studied. Single crystals have been grown by the modified vertical Bridgeman technique. For sensors the optimization have been done both (i) to obtain the maximal magnetooptical quality or figure of merit F=V/a and/or (ii) to reach dF/dT=O near T=300 K at different wavelengths. The first factor provides the maximal sensitivity of the sensor, while the second one leads to its temperature stability