ANALYSIS OF THE DY CONTRIBUTION TO THE FARADAY-ROTATION OF BI-DYLG FILM

At lambda = 633 nm, very accurate measurements of the Faraday rotation (FR) on epitaxial garnet films of the composition {R3-xBix}[Fe-2](Fe- 3)O-12 with R = Dy, Y, and high Bi content (x congruent to 1.30) are r eported, in the temperature range of 10-620 K under magnetic field up to 20 kOe applied along the (111) and the (110) directions. The films which were prepared by standard liquid-phase epitaxy techniques under constant growth conditions present a high crystalline quality. BiDyIG films exhibit a very different temperature and field variation of FR b elow 140 K whereas BiYIG films data indicate no FR anisotropy. The ori gin of the FR anisotropy observed when R = Dy is discussed and it is s hown that the anisotropy of the magnetization cannot account for the w hole FR anisotropy. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.