Passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser based on a nanodiamond saturable absorber

Abstract

In this paper, we propose nanodiamond (ND) material as a saturable absorber (SA) to generate short pulses from a mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL). The ND-SA is fabricated by the drop-casting method using polyvinyledenedifluoride–trifluoroethylene as a host polymer and methyl ethel ketone as a solvent liquid. The SA, which possesses 20% ND concentration, has a 5.46% modulation depth with 2000 M W / c m 2 saturation intensity. Sequentially, the performance of the EDFL is investigated after integrating an ND-SA within the laser ring. The results reveal that the presented ND-SAs produce stable ultrashort laser pulses. Moreover, the fabricated ND film is a promising solid film for many photonic schemes. The proposed mode-locked EDFL-based ND-SA starts a mode-locking operation at a pumped power of 116 mW. The generated mode-locked pulses have a pulse duration of 0.84 ps, a repetition rate of 1.93 MHz, and a power of 0.517 mW, at a pumped power of 187 mW. Finally, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the ND-SA has been used as a mode locker within the EDFL as a thin film and with the suggested fabrication method.

Optimization of passive Q‐switched fiber laser employing MAX phase chromium aluminum carbide film

“…[7][8][9][10] Due to their fast recovery time, artificial SAs have been widely utilized for producing short laser pulses. [11][12][13] Also, their optical characteristics create the saturable absorption effect, such as nonlinear polarization rotation, 14 nonlinear optical loop mirror, 15 and nonlinear amplifying loop mirror. 16 Nevertheless, the drawback of artificial SAs is the difficulty of determining and reproducing the modulation depth in diverse configuration cavities.…”

“…Due to their fast recovery time, artificial SAs have been widely utilized for producing short laser pulses 11–13 . Also, their optical characteristics create the saturable absorption effect, such as nonlinear polarization rotation, 14 nonlinear optical loop mirror, 15 and nonlinear amplifying loop mirror 16 .…”