A systematic study of the pulsed-laser deposition of fully substituted bismuth iron garnet (BIG, or Bi3Fe5O12) has been carried out. Garnet-structure BIG films grow epitaxially onto gallium gadolinium garnet substrates under deposition conditions that. lead to a stoichiometric film. The variation of stoichiometry with deposition conditions is discussed. The refractive index, n, of BIG decreases from 2.819 at 633 ran to 2.584 at 1550 nm, with an imaginary part, k, less than 0.05. (C) 2003 Elsevier science B.V. All rights reserved.