Optical Faraday rotation with graphene

Abstract

Plane polarized electromagnetic waves propagating through a dielectric medium parallel to a magnetic field undergo Faraday rotation (FR) of their polarization. Giant Faraday rotation by as much as 0.1 rad was recently observed for terahertz waves with graphene over a SiC substrate. We show that for the (more technologically useful) optical frequency range, the same effect may be achieved with interband transitions between Landau levels formed by application of real or pseudo-magnetic fields induced by strain. At some resonant condition, the FR angle shows a sharp transition and sign reversal, which may be used to rotate the polarizations of the sodium doublet D-lines so as to be perpendicular to each other. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.