A Microfiber Knot Incorporating a Tungsten Disulfide Saturable Absorber Based Multi-Wavelength Mode-Locked Erbium-Doped Fiber Laser

Abstract

A novel multi-wavelength mode-locked Erbiumdoped fiber laser with tungsten disulfide (WS2) combined with a microfiber knot is described. This hybrid fiber structure facilitates strong light matter interaction between the saturated absorption of the WS2 material and high optical non-linearity of the microfiber knot. It is demonstrated experimentally that the novel fiber laser works stably in the absence of an external comb filter, with the generation of stable multi-wavelength picosecond pulses. In the multi-wavelength lasing regime, up to 7-wavelength stable mode-locked pulses are obtained using a polarization controller with the pump power at ~250 mW. The pulse period and the pulse width are 188.7 ns and 16.3 ps respectively. In addition, the number of multi-wavelength lasing channels can be changed by simply adjusting the microfiber knot size. Experimental results show the laser to have a stable output over 12 hours recording period. The results of this investigation demonstrate that the optical microfiber knot with a WS2 overlay based fiber laser device can operate as a highly nonlinear optical component and a saturable absorber. The proposed multi-wavelength lasing device can therefore be widely used for non-linear and ultrafast photonics and has a number of advantages compared to similar devices using more conventional technologies, including low cost and good stability.

Mode-locked ytterbium-doped fiber laser with zinc phthalocyanine thin film saturable absorber

“…In recent years, various types of nanomaterials have been reported for generation of mode-locked pulse train by YDFL. For instance, typical two-dimensional (2D) materials such as black phosphorus (BP) [14], transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) [14,15], and graphene [16] have gained interest in recent years because of their excellent optical and electrical properties. Graphene was widely utilized in various ultrafast pulse lasers [16].…”

Multiwavelength Q-switched pulse operation with gold nanoparticles as saturable absorber

“…1 Furthermore, their operation wavelength bands cover a large range, including operation at 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 μm. [2][3][4][5] Compared with 1.0 and 1.5 μm multiwavelength pulse fiber lasers, multiwavelength pulse fiber lasers operating at 2.0 μm show great promise for use in many applications, including optical communications, optical sensing (given their inherent advantages of eye safe operation), and low loss in atmospheric transmission applications. 4 However, compared to lasers operating in the 1.0 and 1.5 μm multiwavelength regions, pulse operation in the 2.0-μm region is more difficult to achieve due to the added requirements for more precise parameters (e.g., nonlinearity and the net dispersion) and a higher demand on the real SA materials (e.g., bandgap requirements).…”

“…These approaches are mainly based on the employment of an artificial saturable absorber (SA) [6][7][8][9][10] and a real SA. 3,4,[11][12][13][14][15][16] A real SA is considered one of the most efficient methods for multiwavelength pulse generation. Numerous real SA materials have been studied for multiwavelength pulse generation including topological insulators, 14 various transition metal dichalcogenides, 3,4 black phosphorus 17 etc.…”

“…3,4,[11][12][13][14][15][16] A real SA is considered one of the most efficient methods for multiwavelength pulse generation. Numerous real SA materials have been studied for multiwavelength pulse generation including topological insulators, 14 various transition metal dichalcogenides, 3,4 black phosphorus 17 etc. Graphene is a typical real SA material, which is widely used in the laser field and has proved popular for generating multiwavelength pulses in fiber lasers.…”

Nonlinear optical properties of arsenic telluride and its use in ultrafast fiber lasers

“…A variety of materials, which are mostly nano-structured materials, have been identified as saturable absorption materials suitable for SA implementation. These include: carbon nanotubes (CNTs) 4,[17][18][19][20] , graphene [21][22][23][24][25][26] , graphene oxide (GO) 27,28 , topological insulators (TIs) [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] , topological semimetal 39 , transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) [40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] , transition metal monochalcogenides (TMMCs) 54 , filled skutterudites (FSs) 55 , black phosphorus (BPs) [56][57][58] , gold nano-particles [59][60][61] , and MXenes 62,63 .…”