High-performance laser mode-locker with glass-hosted SWNTs realized by room-temperature aerosol deposition

Hyung-Jun Kim,Yong-Won Song,Ho-Jun Choi,Song-Min Nam

doi:10.1364/oe.19.004762

Abstract

We preserve optical nonlinear properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) within SiO2-host employing aerosol deposition (AD) that guarantees the formation of dense ceramic thick films at room temperature without combustion and solubility limitation of the SWNTs. The intact nonlinearity is verified with transmittance check, Raman spectrometry and electron microscopes. As a saturable absorption device, the SiO2-SWNT composite film successfully mode-locks fiber lasers inducing high-quality output pulses with the measured pulse duration and repetition rate of 890 fs and 9.52 MHz, respectively. After experiencing the intracavity power higher than 20 dBm, the hosted SWNTs are survived to function as the pulse formers.

Highlights

With their extremely high optical nonlinearity along with ultrafast photonic operation, singlewalled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have paved the way for diversified generation nonlinear photonic devices and systems [1,2]
We preserve optical nonlinear properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) within SiO2-host employing aerosol deposition (AD) that guarantees the formation of dense ceramic thick films at room temperature without combustion and solubility limitation of the SWNTs
The intact nonlinearity is verified with transmittance check, Raman spectrometry and electron microscopes

Summary

Introduction

With their extremely high optical nonlinearity along with ultrafast photonic operation, singlewalled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have paved the way for diversified generation nonlinear photonic devices and systems [1,2]. The scheme (iii) has been demonstrated to overcome the low thermal damage threshold of SWNTs while keeping the identical pulse forming operation in a high-power regime by managing the interaction with a part of the propagating light. The current problems to be solved include poor dispersion and solubility of SWNTs in the host material, low reliability, restricted cooling problems from the polymers, and compatibility problems with the silica fibers from the soft glasses [9,10,11,12,13]. The high-power durability of the hosted SWNTs in the direct SWNT-laser interaction scheme was estimated as well

SiO2-SWNT composite film prepared on an optical fiber by AD

Passively mode-locked laser functioned by the SiO2-hosted SWNTs

Conclusion