Soliton fiber laser mode‐locked by a single‐wall carbon nanotube‐polymer composite

Wang, Frank; Rozhin, Aleksey; Sun, Zhipei; Scardaci, Vittorio; White, I.H.; Ferrari, Andrea C.

doi:10.1002/pssb.200879632

Cited by 22 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…The generally acceptable range of optical density is 0.2-0.5 (60-30% transmission). [94,[96][97][98]124,125,147,156,186] However, composites with much higher absorption have also been demonstrated to mode-lock. [100] As an example, Figure 6a shows the absorption of SWNT-PVA, pure PVA, and the initial SWNT solution.…”

Section: Optical Absorption Spectroscopymentioning

confidence: 97%

“…[94,97,124,125,147,148,150,153,186,190,194] Their optical quality and mode-locking performance has steadily improved. [97,125,147,148,156,186] For PVA, SDBS may be used as surfactant due to its efficiency in dispersing high amounts of SWNTs. [106,195,196] It disperses SWNTs with a larger diameter range compared to bile salts, the latter preferring small-diameter tubes.…”

Section: Aqueous-solvent Routementioning

confidence: 99%

“…To date, SWNT-based SAs have been successfully used as mode-lockers in fiber lasers, [94,[96][97][98][145][146][147][148]153,156,186,191] waveguide lasers, [95] solid-state lasers, [149,150,189,311,312] and semiconductor lasers [155] at 1, 1.3, 1.55, 1.6, [97] and 1.9 mm. [152,207,313] A list of SWNT-based mode-lockers, their performance ranges, and specifications is presented in Table 1.…”

Section: Nanotube Composites As Mode-lockers For Ultrafast Lasersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[21,45,[330][331][332][333] Thus far, fiber lasers are the most commonly mode-locked with SWNTs, [94,[96][97][98][145][146][147][148][149][150]153,[155][156][157][158][159]186,189,191] due to the ease of coupling SWNT-composites into a fiber laser. In addition, they normally require large modulation depths in order to stabilize the intracavity pulses, [45] which can be provided by the relatively large nonlinearity of the SWNT mode-lockers.…”

Section: Swnt-polymer Mode-locked Fiber Lasersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[183] The best way to overcome such disadvantages is to finely disperse SWNTs in a polymer matrix. [96][97][98][99][100][101][102]124,125,[146][147][148]150,152,153,[156][157][158][159][185][186][187][188][189][190][191] …”

Section: Saturable Absorptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nanotube–Polymer Composites for Ultrafast Photonics

et al. 2009

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Polymer composites are one of the most attractive near‐term means to exploit the unique properties of carbon nanotubes and graphene. This is particularly true for composites aimed at electronics and photonics, where a number of promising applications have already been demonstrated. One such example is nanotube‐based saturable absorbers. These can be used as all‐optical switches, optical amplifier noise suppressors, or mode‐lockers to generate ultrashort laser pulses. Here, we review various aspects of fabrication, characterization, device implementation and operation of nanotube‐polymer composites to be used in photonic applications. We also summarize recent results on graphene‐based saturable absorbers for ultrafast lasers.

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Section: Optical Absorption Spectroscopymentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Aqueous-solvent Routementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Nanotube Composites As Mode-lockers For Ultrafast Lasersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Swnt-polymer Mode-locked Fiber Lasersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Saturable Absorptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nanotube–Polymer Composites for Ultrafast Photonics

et al. 2009

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Graphene–Polymer Nanofiber Membrane for Ultrafast Photonics

Bao¹,

Zhang²,

Yang³

et al. 2010

Adv Funct Materials

454

285

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A freestanding membrane composed of a nanofiber network of a graphene–polymer nanocomposite is fabricated by electrospinning and applied as an optical element in fiber lasers. The functionalization of graphene with conjugated organic molecules provides a handle for improving mechanical and thermal properties as well as tuning the optical properties. A small loading (0.07 wt%) of functionalized graphene enhances the total optical absorption of poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc) by 10 times. The electrospun graphene–polymer nanocomposites exhibit wideband saturable absorbance for laser pulse shaping, and attain a larger modulation depth and smaller nonsaturable loss than single‐walled carbon nanotubes. The results show that electrospun graphene nanocomposites are promising candidates as practical and efficient photonic materials for the generation of ultrashort pulses in fiber lasers.

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A Comparison for Saturable Absorbers: Carbon Nanotube Versus Graphene

Lau

Liu

Qiu

2022

Advanced Photonics Research

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Saturable absorption is a nonlinear optical phenomenon that is characterized by the reduced optical loss at high light intensity. At low light intensity, the saturable absorber (SA) absorbs light and results in an optical loss. When the light intensity is increased, the available energy states become depleted, leading to a reduction in absorption. For semiconductors, the saturated optical absorption under strong excitation is in conjunction with the Pauli expulsion of occupying carriers at the edge of the filled conduction band thus allowing photons to penetrate through the material without further absorption. [1] When incorporated into a mode-locked laser cavity, the saturable absorption process begins from the inherent noise fluctuations of a laser cavity. A dominant noise spike with the highest intensity will saturate the absorber and decreases the absorbance loss such as the pedestal peaks. [2] Next, this noise spike is amplified in subsequent round trips until a stable pulse train is eventually formed. This favors the generation of ultrafast laser pulses over continuous-wave laser operation. During the formation of ultrafast laser pulses, the SA is operated either as slow or fast SA. The main difference between these two SA configurations is their relaxation time. The relaxation time of a slow SA is longer than its pulse duration measured from the mode-locked laser. The long time constant results in reduced saturation intensity due to slow recovery of absorption. [3] Therefore, the slow SA self-starts the modelocked laser at a lower power threshold. In contrast, the relaxation time of fast SA is shorter than its pulse duration measured from the mode-locked laser. Owing to the fast relaxation time, the electrons in the conduction band will return to the valence band at a period shorter than the pulse duration. This constitutes the higher power threshold to self-start the mode-locked laser.Despite the difficulty to self-start the mode-locking, the fast SA is responsible for the stabilization of the laser. The fast SA has ultrafast carrier relaxation time for the SA to recover from bleaching with minimal time. [4] Besides stabilization, ultrafast relaxation time is also crucial to shortening the pulse duration of the mode-locked laser. [5] Before the advent of ultrashort pulse with relaxation time ranging from a few ps to a few hundred fs, semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) was demonstrated with a complex post-fabrication process. For instance, ion implantation is needed to reduce its relaxation time to ps time scale. This encourages the discovery of a material with sub-picosecond recovery time, such as carbon nanotube (CNT) [6] and graphene. [7] Both CNT and graphene have ultrafast and slow recovery from saturation. In a femtosecond laser, the CNT will typically act as a slow SA due to its recovery time of few ps, whereas the graphene will typically act as a fast SA due to its

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Soliton fiber laser mode‐locked by a single‐wall carbon nanotube‐polymer composite

Cited by 22 publications

References 27 publications

Nanotube–Polymer Composites for Ultrafast Photonics

Nanotube–Polymer Composites for Ultrafast Photonics

Graphene–Polymer Nanofiber Membrane for Ultrafast Photonics

A Comparison for Saturable Absorbers: Carbon Nanotube Versus Graphene

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