Abstract

Photo-induced Faraday rotation (PIFR) is a new nonlinear magneto-optical process of great interest both for fundamental reasons and also for applications. The choice of the appropriate materials is very crucial; it has been shown that this nonlinear process can be very efficient in semimagnetic semiconductors (SMSC) such as Cd_1-xMn_xTe. The strong exchange interaction in these compounds between the spins of delocalized band electrons and those of the localized Mn⁺⁺ ions, which provokes giant linear Faraday rotations,¹ is also the origin of the photo-induced Faraday rotations² observed there.

© 1995 Optical Society of America