A joint research group led by Professor Satoshi Iwamoto and Visiting Associate Professor Yasutomo Ota (Associate Professor at Keio University) has successfully discovered that indium tin oxide (ITO), an epsilon near-zero (ENG) material with almost zero dielectric constant at certain wavelengths, exhibits magneto-optical(MO) effects comparable to those of magnetic materials in the optical communication wavelength band. This achievement is expected to lead to the realization of integrated optical isolators and unidirectional topological optical waveguides, which have been difficult to achieve with conventional technologies, and to further increase the integration density of optical circuits. This result was achieved in collaboration with the Institute of Electromagnetic Materials and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the paper was published in the online edition of the U.S. scientific journal “Advanced Optical Materials” on September 15.
[Link]