Highly luminescent garnets for magneto-optical photonic crystals

We compare luminescent properties of several Er-doped garnets as building blocks in all-garnet heteroepitaxial magneto-optical photonic crystals. Pulsed laser deposited La3Ga5O12, Gd3Ga5O12, Y3Fe5O12, and rf-magnetron sputtered Bi3Fe5O12 were chosen to host Er3+ ions on dodecahedral lattice sites. Er substituents with the concentration of 0.5 at. % (0.1 garnet formula units) do not decrease giant Faraday rotation in Bi2.9Er0.1Fe5O12 garnet; meanwhile providing intense room temperature C-band photoluminescence (PL). Fe3+ ion works as a sensitizer for Er resulting in fivefold PL enhancement in iron garnets compared to gallium ones. PL lifetime in gallium garnets is in millisecond range reaching almost 6 ms in Gd2.9Er0.1Ga5O12. We conclude Er substitution in gallium and iron garnet layers used both as Bragg mirrors and microcavities promises magneto-optical photonic crystals to become an active lasing medium.