We demonstrated a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser by using gold nanorods as a saturable absorber. The gold nanorods (GNRs) were mixed with sodium carboxymethylcellulose (NaCMC) to form GNRs-NaCMC films. By inserting one of the GNRs-NaCMC films into an EDFL cavity pumped by a 980 nm laser diode, stable passively mode-locking was achieved with a threshold pump power of ∼54 mW, and 12 ps pulses at 1561 nm with a repetition rate of 34.7 MHz and a maximum average power of ∼2.05 mW were obtained for a pump power of ∼62 mW.

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