Single-walled carbon nanotube saturable absorber assisted high-power mode-locking of a Ti:sapphire laser

Abstract

We report on passive mode-locking of a Ti:sapphire laser employing a single-walled carbon nanotube saturable absorber (SWCNT-SA) specially designed and fabricated for wavelengths near 800 nm. Mode-locked pulses as short as 62 fs were generated at a repetition rate of 99.4 MHz. We achieved output powers from the SWCNT-SA mode-locked laser as high as 600 mW with a slope efficiency of 26%. The characteristics of SWCNT-SA-assisted mode-locking were compared with those of Kerr-lens mode-locking without SWCNT-SA.

Far-field imaging of non-fluorescent species with subdiffraction resolution

“…The resolution can be further improved through optimization of the imaging conditions, such as applying a shorter excitation wavelength and increasing the photodamage threshold upon faster scanning. We note that saturated transient absorption microscopy is applicable to other nanomaterials with saturable absorption, such as single-wall carbon nanotubes 20–22 as well as iron oxide and zinc oxide nanoparticles 23, 24 , which are considered as biocompatible imaging agents 25, 26 . Compared to previously reported pump-probe nanoscopy, which is based on scanning tunneling microscope or near-field scanning optical microscope 27 , our method offers a much faster imaging speed in a contact-free manner.…”

Graphene absorber for passive mode-locking Nd:YVO4 laser

“…As alternative, single-walled carbon nanotube-based saturable absorbers (SWCNT-SAs) have been qualified for a broadband mode-locking device for bulk and fiber lasers. The SWCNTs can be a good mode-locker between 800 nm and 2.0μm thanks to their intrinsic semiconducting transitions [7][8][9][10][11]. Yet, The SWCNT has large surface tension, which will cause a lower damage threshold.…”

Carbon nanotube mode-locked vertical external-cavity surface-emitting laser

“…In the context of semiconductor saturable absorbers for mode-locking low-gain OPSDL, it is worth looking into semiconducting single walled nano-tubes (SWCNT) which offer large tunablity of the lowest interband transition energy by adjusting the nanotube diameter, and they can be purified to exhibit low nonsaturable loss without sacrificing the absorption modulation depth. Over recent years a number of solid state lasers mode-locked using SWCNT saturable absorbers (SWCNT-SA) have been demonstrated throughout the near infrared spectral region [13][14][15][16][17]. Overview of this saturable absorber technology and applications for mode-locking high-gain solid state lasers in the spectral range between 800 nm and 1940 nm can be found in Ref.…”