Graphene saturable absorber for high power semiconductor disk laser mode-locking

Abstract

Here, we report on the development of an antiresonant graphene-based one-dimensional structure which allows the control of linear and nonlinear device performance through optical confinement. A record average output in excess of 10 W is achieved by integrating this antiresonant graphene saturable absorber mirror into a vertical-external-cavity-surface-emitting-laser at 1030 nm, which leads to strong evidence of mode-locking, generating pulses with energies up to 2.8 nJ and a pulsewidth of 353 fs.

Non-equilibrium ultrashort pulse generation strategies in VECSELs

“…So far, up to 106 W has been reached using multimode operation [6,7] and 15 W in single frequency operation [14]. At the same time, stable modelocked pulses have been found using semiconductor external saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs) [1,2,4,8,9], graphene and carbon nanotube saturable absorbers [10][11][12], and integrated quantum well (QW) and quantum dot saturable absorbers [10]. Today, the shortest experimentally realized pulse widths are on the order of 100 fs [3,13,15].…”

“…The wavelength flexible vertical external-cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL) has been a popular subject in recent research [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Two main applications have been continuous-wave (CW) operation and mode-locked pulse generation.…”

Optically pumped VECSELs: review of technology and progress

“…Recently, VECSELs have also been mode-locked using the saturable absorption in carbon nanotubes [372] and graphene [373]. In particular, Husaini and Bedford [374] reported a mode-locked VECSEL with 10 W average power and 353 fs pulse duration using a graphene absorber mirror. However, the RF spectrum in this publication did not indicate stable mode-locking, nor did the autocorrelation trace indicate single-pulse operation.…”

Spectral Methods for Determining the Stability and Noise Performance of Passively Modelocked Lasers

“…Some examples are GaAs Bragg mirrors [14], nanotubes [15], and graphene saturable absorbers [16]. In nano-scale semiconductor laser diodes, the saturable absorber can also be integrated monolithically in the quantum well/dot structure by electrically isolating one section of the device [17,18].…”