Fabrication and characterizations of a Erbium doped terbium gallium garnet crystal for Faraday rotators

High optical (Tb(1-x)Erx)(3)Ga5O12 (TEGG) single crystal has been grown by the Czochralski (Cz) technique. X-ray powder diffraction was carried out and lattice parameters were calculated, which showed that the single crystal belongs to cubic crystal system with high crystallinity. Observed optical characteristics and magneto-optical properties were compared with those of pure terbium gallium garnet (TGG) crystal at room temperature. The Verdet constant (V) dispersion of TEGG was evaluated in the visible and near-infrared region (VIS-NIR). The V of TEGG at 532 nm comes up to 224.5 rad m(-1) T-1, obviously larger than that of TGG. The high thermal conductivity and laser induced damage threshold (LIDT) of TEGG further confirmed its great potential to be applied in the high power laser system. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.