Photonic crystals with plasmonic patterns: Novel type of the heterostructures for enhanced magneto-optical activity

A multilayer structure consisting of a magnetophotonic crystal with a rare-earth iron garnet microresonator layer and plasmonic grating deposited on it was fabricated and studied in order to combine functionalities of photonic and plasmonic crystals. The plasmonic pattern allows excitation of the hybrid plasmonic-waveguide modes localized in dielectric Bragg mirrors of the magnetophotonic crystal or waveguide modes inside its microresonator layer. These modes give rise to the additional resonances in the optical spectra of the structure and to the enhancement of the magneto-optical effects. The Faraday effect increases by about 50% at the microresonator modes while the transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect demonstrates pronounced peculiarities at both hybrid waveguide modes and microresonator modes and increases by several times with respect to the case of the bare magnetophotonic crystal without the metal grating.