Faraday Rotation in Glasses

Abstract

The Verdet constants of a number of glasses have been measured with the object of studying the Faraday effect in glass. The Verdet constant was measured for three types of glasses: (1) optical glasses, where the Verdet constant correlates well with the reciprocal dispersion; (2) diamagnetic glasses, where glasses which contain high concentrations of ions that have sp—s2 transitions give rise to large Verdet constants; (3) rare-earth glasses, i.e., paramagnetic ions, where Pr3+ and Dy3+ silicate and borate glasses have the largest Verdet constants. These latter rare-earth data were compared to the theoretical expression of Van Vleck and Hebb and to the experimental data on metaphosphates of Berger et al.