Filled Skutterudites for Broadband Saturable Absorbers

Abstract

Filled skutterudites (FSs), which are known to be good thermoelectric materials, have been intensively investigated in the field of condensed matter physics in the past decades, due to their large variety of electronic and magnetic properties. However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, there has been no previous investigation of the optical properties of FSs. The nonlinear optical saturable absorption property of FSs is investigated in this work for the first time, and the results are reported here. More specifically, Co4Sb12 is chosen as a binary skutterudite system, and indium ions are added as a filling element to form a FS of In0.2Co4Sb12. The material properties are systematically investigated using a series of measurements. Density functional theory calculations of the electronic band structures of InCo4Sb12 and In0.25Co4Sb12 are conducted for better understanding of their energy band structures. It is also demonstrated that a broadband saturable absorber (SA) that can simultaneously operate at 1.5 and 1.9 µm can readily be implemented by depositing particles of In0.2Co4Sb12 onto fiber ferrules. The efficacy of the prepared SA is tested by incorporating the device into rare earth ion‐doped fiber ring cavities, to show its capability for both 1.5 and 1.9 µm operation.

Ultrafast Nonlinear Optical Response in Plasmonic 2D Molybdenum Oxide Nanosheets for Mode‐Locked Pulse Generation

“…Furthermore, atomically thin thickness, tailorable electronic structures, specific plane confinement, and unique interlayer coupling allow 2D materials to interact strongly with light and offer optical response over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, which are of great significance in strengthening NLO effects and the development of various optical modulators and switches for pulse lasers and photonic devices. Up to the present, successful demonstrations of these NLO devices have been enabled by a wide range of 2D materials, such as topological insulators, graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides, black phosphorus, Mxenes, and by complex metalloid compound . On the other hand, the plasmonic properties of both gapless graphene and different gapped 2D semiconductors, however, showed active spectral region primarily in the MIR due to their low carrier density, thus strongly limiting their applications.…”

Passively Q-switched Yb-doped all-fiber laser based on Ag nanoplates as saturable absorber

“…In recent years, the investigation of novel high-performance SAs for pulsed laser systems has been a rich and fascinating subject in the field of fiber laser physics, leading to an outburst of publications realized with Q-switched and mode-locked fiber lasers. To date, numerous nanomaterials have been demonstrated as efficient saturable absorption materials for SAs in Q-switched fiber lasers, such as carbon nanotubes [8][9][10], graphene [11][12][13][14], transition-metal dichalcogenides [15][16][17][18], topological insulators [19][20][21], black phosphorus [22][23][24], quantum dots [25,26], MXenes [27], filled skutterudites [28], and transition metal oxides [29][30][31].…”

van der Waals Layered Tin Selenide as Highly Nonlinear Ultrafast Saturable Absorber

“…However, they suffer from limited operating bandwidth and expensive fabrication costs, which demand the development of new cost‐effective broadband SAs, ideally with more superior performance. To this end, a variety of materials have been investigated thus far, which include carbon nanotubes, black phosphorus, gold nanoparticles and/or nanorods, filled‐skutterudites, and topological insulators (TIs) . Recently, enormous research efforts have been dedicated to 2D materials such as graphene, graphene oxide, phosphorene, and transition‐metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), as well as MXene that was first suggested by our recent study indicating the great promise of its large material option for SA .…”