Methods of studying magnetic circular dichroism in erbium-doped aluminosilicate glass

The magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) spectrum of 3.0 mol% Er+3 doped aluminosilicate glass has been measured over a range of temperatures in several optical absorption bands. The method of moments was used to obtain the Faraday A1, B0, and C0 parameters from the spectra, and the spectroscopic splitting factor, g, for the 4I15/2 ground state was calculated for each band studied. The ground state g was also calculated from the saturation properties of the magnetic circular dichroism signal vs. magnetic field strength at 1.6 K. The gs obtained by both methods show very good agreement with each other and are compared with those found in previous works.