Method of manufacturing a bismuth-substituted rare-earth iron garnet single crystal film

摘要

A method is used when manufacturing a bismuth-substituted rare-earth iron garnet single crystal (BIG) film by the LPE method. The BIG film is grown on one side of a non-magnetic garnet substrate using a melt that contains flux components and rare-earth oxides. An amount of calcium is added to the melt such that a difference between optical absorption coefficients of the film at a wavelength of 0.78 mu m before and after subjecting the film to hydrogen-reduction treatment ranges from 660 to 1430 dB/cm. The film is grown on a non-magnetic garnet substrate having a thickness in the range of 400-600 mu m, at a crystal growth temperature of the melt to form a film-substrate structure. The film-substrate structure has a curvature ranging from +0.3 to +0.7 m-1 at room temperature. The film-substrate structure is subjected to the hydrogen reduction at a temperature ranging from 320 to 400 DEG C. in a hydrogen atmosphere, so that the curvature of the film-substrate structure decreases to a value ranging from -0.1 to +0.1 m-1.