CeF_3 and PrF_3 as UV-Visible Faraday rotators

CeF3 and PrF3 single crystals are investigated as Faraday rotators for the UV-visible region. Their properties are compared with those of the industrial standard reference terbium-gallium-garnet (TGG) single crystal. In contrast to TGG, CeF3 exhibits a higher transparency in the whole near UV-visible-IR, and a remarkable higher figure of merit which rapidly increases towards the cutoff. In the case of PrF3, the transparency extends to even shorter wavelengths, and analogously to CeF3 its figure of merit increases notably in the UV. These results indicate the potential of CeF3 and PrF3 as optical isolators in the UV-visible, where at present there are no alternative candidates.