Plasmon Enhanced Faraday Rotation in Thin Films

Abstract: We have analyzed analytically the Faraday rotation of an electromagnetic wave for magnetoactive thin metallic film with a nanostructured surface profile. Periodical as well as random surface profiles were considered. The plasmon contribution to the Faraday angle was studied. For periodical grating case, we have shown that the maximum of rotation angle is achieved when surface plasmon wave number coincides with one of the wave numbers of the inverse lattice. Enhancement of the Faraday angle at plasmonic band edges is predicted. In the case of random surface profile, it is shown that the diffusion of surface magnetoplasmons gives a dominant contribution to Faraday rotation. Comparison with the experiments is carried out.