The relation between one-magnon light scattering and the complex magneto-optic effects in YIG

Abstract

A theory is presented for light scattering from acoustic magnons in a cubic ferromagnet and expressed in terms of the complex magneto-optic effects. The treatment gives a description of the scattered intensity extending into the region of optical absorption. The analysis when applied to YIG shows that the contribution to the scattered intensity from the anti-Hermitian (dissipative) terms in the magneto-optic coupling dominates towards the short-wavelength end of the visible spectrum. The theory is found to relate accurately the magneto-optic data to the scattered intensity measured at four laser wavelengths spanning the visible region.