Transition Metal Dichalcogenides (WS ₂ and MoS ₂ ) Saturable Absorbers for Mode-Locked Erbium-Doped Fiber Lasers

Abstract

We demonstrate an ultrafast fiber laser based on transition metal dichalcogenide materials which are tungsten disulfide (WS2) and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) as saturable absorber (SA). These materials are fabricated via a simple drop-casting method. By employing WS2, we obtain a stable harmonic mode-locking at the threshold pump power of 184 mW, and the generated soliton pulse has 3.48 MHz of repetition rate. At the maximum pump power of 250 mW, we also obtain a small value of pulse duration, 2.43 ps with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 57 dB. For MoS2 SA, the pulse is generated at 105 mW pump power with repetition rate of 1.16 MHz. However, the pulse duration cannot be detected by the autocorrelator device as the pulse duration recorded is 468 ns, with the SNR value of 35 dB.

Recent progress on optical rogue waves in fiber lasers: status, challenges, and perspectives

“…However, there have been no systematic studies on the dynamic of RWs in a specific SA-MLFL, which would be a direction for the study in the future. In the last decade, 2-D nanomaterials, including grapheme, 73,[163][164][165] topological insulators, 53 and transition metal dichalcogenides, [166][167][168] have been widely applied as optical saturable absorbers for MLFLs and have been studied for RW generation. 53 In the last three years, there have been many 2-D materials reported for application in ultrafast fiber lasers, [169][170][171][172] which has significantly enhanced the development of the ultrafast lasers.…”

Few-layer bismuthene for 1-μm ultrafast laser applications

“…Figure 1 , which shows that inter-distance of the lattice fringes is 0.33 nm in accordance with the (012) interplanar distance of the rhombohedral A7 structure [35] . only one stable form exists, which possesses a rhombohedral A7-type structure like antimony, with a natural layered structure [3,11,31] . High resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD) of bismuth powder is given in Figure 2(b), and its space group is confirmed to be R _ ,3m [35] .…”

“…Many materials have also been used as a saturable absorber (SA) for achieving mode locking, which possess broadband nonlinear optical properties and ultrafast response time [22][23][24] . Recently, 2D nanomaterial have been widely applied in the modelocked fiber laser due to their SA characteristics and ultrafast response, such as graphene [22,25] , bismuthene [26] , single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNT) [27][28][29][30] , topological insulators (TIs) [24] , transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) [31] , black phosphorus [32,33] and quantum dots (BPQDS) [34] . 2D materials have presented exceptional optical properties which expand their probable application in our daily life [5] .…”

Third-order optical nonlinearity in nucleobase solid thin solid film and its application for ultrashort light pulse generation

“…One of the effective approaches to generate optical pulses in the femtosecond regime is passive mode-locking based on absorbers (SAs). 3 In recent years, novel materials such as topological insulators, dichalcogenides, and black phosphorus 4–9 have been utilized as SAs to generate ultrashort pulses. These inorganic novel materials, however, have not secured large-scale processing capability yet.…”