Magnetooptic device.

摘要

There is provided a magnetooptic device comprising: a substrate; a semiconductor layer having a quantum well structure formed on the substrate, in which the semiconductor layer is formed by alternately laminating a well layer and a barrier layer and at least the barrier layer in those layers contains magnetic ions; and electrodes to apply an electric field to the semiconductor layer. A light which was polarized in a predetermined direction is input to the semiconductor layer. A magnetic field is applied to the semiconductor layer. An electric field is applied to the semiconductor layer by the electrodes. The light which was transmitted in the semiconductor layer is extracted. A degree of leakage of a wave function of the carrier in the well layer into the barrier layer changes. An effective magnetic field which a carrier spin feels changes by an exchange interaction between the carrier spin and a magnetic moment associated with the magnetic ions. Thus, a degree of magnetooptic effect which is given to the transmission light changes. The degree of manetooptic effect can be controlled by the applied electric field. The magnetooptic device is preferably used as an optical modulator or an optical isolator in the field of optical communication or optical memory.