Institute of Fundamental Technological Research

Optical properties of a composite material made of ferromagnetic metal nanoparticles embedded in a dielectric host are studied. We constructed an effective dielectric tensor of the composite material taking into account the orientational distribution of nanoparticle magnetic moments in external magnetic field. A nonlinear dependence of the optical rotation on magnetic field resulting from the reorientation of nanoparticles is demonstrated. The theoretical findings were applied to the magneto-optical experimental data of cobalt ferromagnetic nanoparticles embedded in a dielectric liquid host. The dependence of the Faraday rotation on Co-based ferromagnetic nanoparticles was measured as a function of the external magnetic field, varying the size of nanoparticles and the wavelength of light. The proposed approach enables quantitative determination of the magnetic moment and the plasma frequency of a single nanoparticle, and from this the size of the nonmagnetic shell of magnetic nanoparticles.