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.