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Significance Statement
2D materials lightening pulsed laser technology
The discovery of graphene since 2004 has triggered great interest in two-dimension (2D) like materials for their abundant electronic and photonic properties. Among various demonstrations with different 2D materials, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have caught researches’ attention because their optical nonlinearity are estimated to be even larger than graphene. Meanwhile, Q-switched fiber laser is a kind of pulsed laser generating high-energy pulse up to several milli-joules and has important applications in both scientific research and medical treatment. Using the saturable absorption, one kind of optical nonlinearity, in transition metal dichalcogenides, one can obtain Q-switched pulses in a fiber laser. In this work, Prof. Kan Wu’s group from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China and Prof. Jun Wang’ group from Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences have demonstrated the Q-switched operation with four different transition metal dichalcogenide materials, i.e., MoS2, WS2, MoSe2, WSe2, simultaneously. The four types of transition metal dichalcogenides were embedded in PVA, a kind of polymer, to form thin film and the TMD-PVA thin film was incorporated in an erbium-doped fiber ring cavity. With this setup, Q-switched pulses with great flexibility were obtained. By adjusting the injected pump power, the pulse energy, pulse duration and repetition rate can all be tuned. This work shows the universality of different transition metal dichalcogenide materials to be utilized as saturable absorber in the fiber lasers and provides a good reference for the future research on the nonlinear properties of transition metal dichalcogenides.
Journal Reference
Optics Express , Volume 23, Issue 20, Page 26723 (2015).
Bohua Chen1, Xiaoyan Zhang2, Kan Wu1, Hao Wang1, Jun Wang2, Jianping Chen1
[expand title=”Show Affiliations”]- State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, Department of Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
- Key Laboratory of Materials for High-Power Laser, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China.
Abstract
In this paper, we report 4 different saturable absorbers based on 4 transition metal dichalcogenides (MoS2, MoSe2, WS2, WSe2) and utilize them to Q-switch a ring-cavity fiber laser with identical cavity configuration. It is found that MoSe2 exhibits highest modulation depth with similar preparation process among four saturable absorbers. Q-switching operation performance is compared from the aspects of RF spectrum, optical spectrum, repetition rate and pulse duration. WS2 Q-switched fiber laser generates the most stable pulse trains compared to other 3 fiber lasers. These results demonstrate the feasibility of TMDs to Q-switch fiber laser effectively and provide a meaningful reference for further research in nonlinear fiber optics with these transition metal dichalcogenides materials.
© 2015 Optical Society of America
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