Lithhium Niobate

730

J. Opt. Soc. Am. B / Vol. 31, No. 4 / April 2014

Li et al.

Optical isolation based on Faraday-like effect in periodically poled lithium niobate with odd number of domains tailed with a semi-domain

Jun Li, Lei Shi, and Xianfeng Chen*

State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China *Corresponding author: xfchen@sjtu.edu.cn Received December 13, 2013; accepted February 6, 2014; posted February 11, 2014 (Doc. ID 202879); published March 7, 2014 We observe the phenomenon of the Faraday-like effect, which occurs in periodically poled lithium niobate with odd number of domains (OPPLN) by the transverse electro-optic (EO) effect under the quasi-phase-matching condition. In this case, light rotates in the reverse sense during the forward and the backward path, and OPPLN shows a nonreciprocal process that is similar to the magneto-optical Faraday effect, which has served as a routine method for achieving optical isolation. Therefore, a feasible scheme for an EO optical isolator based on the Faraday-like effect by adding an additional semi-domain to OPPLN is also proposed in this article. © 2014 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: (130.3730) Lithium niobate; (230.2090) Electro-optical devices; (230.2240) Faraday effect. http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/JOSAB.31.000730

1. INTRODUCTION

The Faraday effect, a magneto-optical phenomenon, causes a rotation of the plane of polarization that is linearly proportional to the component of the magnetic field in the direction of propagation and is identified as a powerful tool in measuring instruments for remote sensing of magnetic fields [1,2], spintronics research to study the polarization of electron spins in semiconductors [3,4] and modulation field to modulate amplitude of light [5]. It originates from the relative phase shift between the left and right circularly polarized light induced by the...