Magnetooptical intensity effects in plasmonic crystals

The key excitation in plasmonics is the surface plasmon polariton (SPP), which is a coupled oscillation of the electromagnetic field and electron plasma in a metal [1]. SPPs allow electromagnetic energy to be concentrated in nanoscale volumes at the interface between a metal and a dielectric, leading to an enhancement of linear and nonlinear optical effects [2]. Current state-of-the-art criteria in telecommunication require plasmonics to be active, i.e. a possibility for control by means of an external stimulus must be provided in the timescale of several nanoseconds or shorter [3]. This talk presents an overview on experimental studies of magneto-optical intensity effects in plasmonic crystals, which are formed by patterning the noble metal film (gold) with a period comparable to the SPP wavelength. To become relevant for magnetooptics, the plasmonic structure is patterned at the top of ferromagnetic layer of rare-earth iron-garnet (BiIG) as it is shown in Fig. 1a. Compared to structures with ferromagnetic metal layers [4] this approach uses materials with low optical absorption which allows SPPs to propagate with relatively low losses [5].