Chiro-ferrites for low-loss magnetic photonic crystals

Summary form only given. Magnetic photonic crystals (MPCs) display exotic propagation characteristics in the form of a frozen mode (Figotin, A. and Vitebskiy, I., Phys. Rev. E, vol.63, 066609, p.1-17; Phys. Rev. B, vol.67, 165210, p.1-20). At microwave frequencies, ferrites are associated with losses which are further exacerbated due to resonant wave behavior (frozen mode) within the crystal. To minimize losses, it is therefore necessary to minimize the ferrite layer thickness while still attaining sufficient Faraday rotation to preserve the frozen mode phenomenon. We investigate the performance of: (1) chiral inclusions within a ferrite medium; (2) chiral (handed) ferrite inclusions within a possibly non-magnetic host medium. Our preliminary analysis demonstrates that much thinner periodic MPC layers can be designed using chiro-ferrite layers. Concurrently, the MPC frozen mode and reflectivity properties are maintained. More specifically, the inflection point in the band diagram is achievable using only a fraction (lower than 1%) of the original ferrite material, implying a significant loss reduction in practice.