Self-organized synthetic opals possessing a face centered cubic (fcc) lattice are promising for fabrication of a three-dimensional photonic crystal with a full photonic band gap in the visible. The fundamental limiting factor of this method is the large concentration of lattice defects and, especially, planar stacking faults, which are intrinsic to self-assembling growth of colloidal crystal. We have studied the influence of various types of defects on photonic band structure of synthetic opals by means of optical transmission, reflection and diffraction along different crystallographic directions. We found that in carefully chosen samples the stacking probability alpha can be as high as 0.8-0.9 revealing the strong preference of fcc packing sequence over the hexagonal close-packed (hcp). It is shown that scattering on plane stacking faults located perpendicular to the direction of growth results in a strong anisotropy of diffraction pattern as well as in appearance of a pronounced doublet structure in transmission and reflection spectra taken from the directions other than the direction of growth. This doublet is a direct manifestation of the coexistence of two crystallographic phases--pure fcc and strongly faulted. As a result the inhomogeneously broadened stop-bands overlap over a considerable amount of phase space. The latter, however, does not mean the depletion of the photonic density of states since large disordering results in filling of the partial gaps with both localized and extended states.

When the constitutive materials of photonic crystals (PCs) are magnetic, or even only a defect introduced in PCs is magnetic, the resultant PCs exhibit very unique optical and magneto-optical properties. The strong photon confinement in the vicinity of magnetic defects results in large enhancement in linear and nonlinear magneto-optical responses of the media. Novel functions, such as band Faraday effect, magnetic super-prism effect and non-reciprocal or magnetically controllable photonic band structure, are predicted to occur theoretically. All the unique features of the media arise from the existence of magnetization in media, and hence they are called magnetophotonic crystals providing the spin-dependent nature in PCs.

We demonstrate the existence of a spectrally narrow localized surface state, the so-called optical Tamm state, at the interface between one-dimensional magnetophotonic and nonmagnetic photonic crystals. The state is spectrally located inside the photonic band gaps of each of the photonic crystals comprising this magnetophotonic structure. This state is associated with a sharp transmission peak through the sample and is responsible for the substantial enhancement of the Faraday rotation for the corresponding wavelength. The experimental results are in excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions.

We have experimentally demonstrated that a magnonic crystal—an artificial magnetic structure for controlling propagation of magnetostatic waves—can be used as an extremely sensitive sensor for detecting magnetic fields. Functional characteristics of the sensor were studied at room temperature and in a normal noisy space without considering any magnetic shielding.

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We have studied the optical and magneto-optical properties of bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Bi:YIG) films with Au nanoparticles dispersed on their top surfaces. These structures exhibit surface plasmon resonances due to light coupling to Au nanoparticles, showing, for any direction of polarization of the incoming light beam, an absorption band in the spectral range of 500–750nm. For transmitted light beams with the plasmon-resonant wavelengths, the plane of polarization rotates slightly when the structure is not magnetized. Polarization-resolved transmission spectra show that this rotation is due to anisotropy of light propagation through the array of Au nanoparticles. For the structure comprising the 90-nm-thick Bi:YIG film and the array of Au nanoparticles of several tens of nanometers, the Faraday rotation angle enhances as compared with that for the original Bi:YIG film of the same thickness.

It is shown theoretically that the Faraday rotation becomes anomalously large and exhibits extraordinary behavior near the frequencies of the extraordinary optical transmittance through optically thick perforated metal film with holes filled with a magneto-optically active material. This phenomenon is explained as result of strong confinement of the evanescent electromagnetic field within magnetic material, which occurs due to excitation of the coupled plasmon-polaritons on the opposite surfaces of the film.

We studied polarization-and angle-resolved optical transmissivity of high quality synthetic opals and found a strong anisotropy in the intensity of the transmitted light at different polarizations for most directions of propagation in the opal photonic crystal. The differential transmissivity T ʈ − T Ќ at two orthogonal polarizations is nearly frequency-independent for the ⌫-L incident light, but it is positive in the energy range of the ͕111͖ photonic stop gaps and negative in the energy range of the ͕200͖ stop gaps in the case of the ⌫-K incidence. The polarization-resolved transmission spectra can be qualitatively analyzed in terms of the Fresnel theory and the Brewster effect taking into account the relative orientation of the ͕hkl͖ crystallographic planes in the opal structure.