Two-dimensional (2D) layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have attracted significant interest in various optoelectronic applications due to their excellent nonlinear optical properties. One of the most important applications of TMDs is to be employed as an extraordinary optical modulation material (e.g., the saturable absorber (SA)) in ultrafast photonics. The main challenge arises while embedding TMDs into fiber laser systems to generate ultrafast pulse trains and thus constraints their practical applications. Herein, few-layered WS with a large-area was directly transferred on the facet of the pigtail and acted as a SA for erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) systems. In our study, WS SA exhibited remarkable nonlinear optical properties (e.g., modulation depth of 15.1% and saturable intensity of 157.6 MW cm) and was used for ultrafast pulse generation. The soliton pulses with remarkable performances (e.g., ultrashort pulse duration of 1.49 ps, high stability of 71.8 dB, and large pulse average output power of 62.5 mW) could be obtained in a telecommunication band. To the best of our knowledge, the average output power of the mode-locked pulse trains is the highest by employing TMD materials in fiber laser systems. These results indicate that atomically large-area WS could be used as excellent optical modulation materials in ultrafast photonics.

In this Letter, high-quality WS film and MoS film were vertically stacked on the tip of a single-mode fiber in turns to form heterostructure (WS-MoS-WS)-based saturable absorbers with all-fiber integrated features. Their nonlinear saturable absorption properties were remarkable, such as a large modulation depth (∼16.99%) and a small saturable intensity (6.23  MW·cm). Stable pulses at 1.55 μm with duration as short as 296 fs and average power as high as 25 mW were obtained in an erbium-doped fiber laser system. The results demonstrate that the proposed heterostructures own remarkable nonlinear optical properties and offer a platform for adjusting nonlinear optical properties by stacking different transition-metal dichalcogenides or modifying the thickness of each layer, paving the way for engineering functional ultrafast photonics devices with desirable properties.

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Ultrafast pulse generation was demonstrated in a thulium-doped fiber laser mode-locked by magnetron-sputtering deposited WTe with a modulation depth, a nonsaturable loss, and a saturable intensity of 31%, 34.3%, and 7.6  MW/cm, respectively. Stable soliton pulses could be obtained at a 1915.5 nm central wavelength with a pulse duration of 1.25 ps, an average output power of 39.9 mW, and a signal-to-noise ratio of 95 dB. To the best of our knowledge, this was the first demonstration of WTe-based saturable absorbers in fiber lasers at a 2 μm regime.

A passively mode-locked thulium-doped fiber (TDF) laser was realized by employing chemical vapor deposited few-layer molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe) as a saturable absorber (SA). The few-layer MoTe film was transferred onto the waist of a microfiber and then incorporated into a TDF laser with a typical all-fiber ring cavity configuration. Stable soliton pulses emitting at 1930.22 nm were obtained with a 3 dB bandwidth of 4.45 nm, a pulse duration of 952 fs, and an average power of 36.7 mW.