We performed generalized Mueller matrix ellipsometry measurements in a magnetic field of arbitrary orientation and magnitude up to 400 mT at room temperature and probed the magneto-optical response of capped, ferromagnetic Fe, Ni₂₀Fe₈₀, Co, Ni₈₀Fe₂₀, and Ni thin films on ZnO substrates in the spectral range from 300 to 1100 nm. We determined the off-diagonal elements in the magneto-optical dielectric tensor under saturated magnetization conditions in the sample surface plane via a model analysis. The off-diagonal elements depend on the net spin polarization and the electronic band structure of the ferromagnetic thin films. For the pure ferromagnetic metals Fe, Co, and Ni, the converted off-diagonal elements agree well with the reported experimental optical conductivity data. As a result we use the extracted wavelength-dependent magneto-optical coupling constant to predict the wavelength-dependent magneto-optical response of different Ni/Fe multilayer structures.
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Mok et al. (2011) studied this question.