Magnetophotonic crystals - a novel magneto-optic material with artificial periodic structures

When the constitutive materials of photonic crystals (PCs) are magnetic, or even only a defect in PCs is magnetic, the resultant PCs exhibit very unique optical and magneto-optical (MO) properties. They are called magnetophotonic crystals (MPCs) providing the spin-dependent nature in PCs. The strong photon confinement in the vicinity of magnetic defects results in large enhancement in linear and nonlinear magneto-optical responses of the media. Novel functions, such as band Faraday effect, magnetic super-prism effect and non-reciprocal or magnetically controllable photonic band structure, are predicted to occur theoretically. In this paper, preparations of 1D, 2D, and 3D MPCs and their fundamental properties are described based upon our recent investigations.