Ytterbium-doped fiber laser passively mode locked by few-layer Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2) saturable absorber functioned with evanescent field interaction

Abstract

By coupling few-layer Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2) with fiber-taper evanescent light field, a new type of MoS2 based nonlinear optical modulating element had been successfully fabricated as a two-dimensional layered saturable absorber with strong light-matter interaction. This MoS2-taper-fiber device is not only capable of passively mode-locking an all-normal-dispersion ytterbium-doped fiber laser and enduring high power laser excitation (up to 1 W), but also functions as a polarization sensitive optical modulating component (that is, different polarized light can induce different nonlinear optical response). Thanks to the combined advantages from the strong nonlinear optical response in MoS2 together with the sufficiently-long-range interaction between light and MoS2, this device allows for the generation of high power stable dissipative solitons at 1042.6 nm with pulse duration of 656 ps and a repetition rate of 6.74 MHz at a pump power of 210 mW. Our work may also constitute the first example of MoS2-enabled wave-guiding photonic device, and potentially give some new insights into two-dimensional layered materials related photonics.

Generation of passively Q-switched fiber laser at 1 μm by using MoSSe as a saturable absorber

“…A mode-locked seed laser with a 1560 nm center wavelength is used for the twin detector technique, and the measured modulation depth and saturation intensity are approximately 25.0% and 0.002 MW∕cm 2 , respectively. The modulation depth obtained is comparable to those previously reported by Li et al [33] , Chen et al [34] , Du et al [35] , and Lu [36] on two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials. Figure 2(c) shows the actual MoSSe-based SA, with the MoSSe sample sitting on the fiber ferrule as captured using a microscope.…”

2D Saturable Absorbers for Fibre Lasers

“…Alternatively, they can be embedded in transparent polymer films to form compact and flexible SA devices [32,[37][38][39][40][41][42][43]. Another attractive prospect is depositing TMD nano flakes along microfibres or D-shaped (side-polished) fibres [44][45][46], where the evanescent field mediates the strength of the light-matter interaction. While the light intensity on the TMD material is weaker in this case, the device interaction length can be significantly increased, which can enhance the nonlinearity, affording a higher power tolerance [44].…”

“…Using MoS 2 , such devices have been fabricated and characterized at ∼1 µm [32,44], ∼1.5 µm [34][35][36][37][39][40][41][42]45,48] and ∼2 µm [49] (corresponding to the gain bands for the principal active ions used in fibre lasers: ytterbium (Yb), erbium (Er) and thulium (Tm)), and a wide range of SA properties have been reported [30]. Saturable loss values have been reported from ∼1% [40] Figure 4 presents the optical characterization of a polymer composite including 6-7 MoSe 2 flakes.…”

“…However, recent work has shown that all-normal and net-normal dispersion maps, producing dissipative solitons, can enable higher pulse energies [1,74]. Such designs have also been exploited for TMD-based mode-locked fibre lasers [33,44,45,53].…”

Dual-wavelength Q-switched pulse generation using D-fibre and MoS2 saturable absorber

“…There are several types of transition-metal dichalcogenides, including selenide-and sulfide-based materials, among which MoS 2 is the most explored. MoS 2 manifests superior saturable-absorption properties, while its nonlinear optical response is stronger than that of graphene [7,8]. As a result, MoS 2 have been widely studied for the photonics applications such as Q-switching and mode-locking [9][10][11][12][13][14].…”