Advanced Materials and Device Architectures for Magnetooptical Spatial Light Modulators

Faraday and Kerr rotations are magnetooptical (MO) effects used for rotating the polarization of light upon transmission and reflection, respectively. These effects are coupled with intrinsically fast magnetization reversal, which can go down to a few tens of femtoseconds or less. These effects can be applied in magnetooptical spatial light modulators (MOSLMs) promising for nonvolatile, ultrafast, and high-resolution spatial modulation of light. Combined with recent progress in low-power switching of magnetic and MO materials, MOSLMs may lead to new major breakthroughs and benefit beyond state-of-the-art holography, data storage, optical communications, heads-up displays, virtual and augmented reality devices, and solid-state light detection and ranging (LIDAR). Here, we review the recent developments in the growth, processing, and engineering of advanced materials with high MO figures of merit for practical MOSLM devices. We assess the challenges with MOSLM functionalities including the intrinsic weakness of MO effect and large power requirement for switching. We also evaluate the suggested solutions, investigate different driving systems, benchmark resulting device architectures, and finally appraise the research opportunities on MOSLMs in order to have integrated, high-contrast, and low-power devices.