Morphology effect of zinc oxide on nonlinear optical properties for soliton mode-locked fiber laser

Abstract

In this work, zinc oxide (ZnO) with different morphologies was synthesized to examine the effect of morphology on the nonlinear optical properties. The impact of this effect on the performance of mode-locked pulsed fiber laser was further investigated. The ZnO particle-like and flake-like were prepared using the sol-gel and hydrothermal methods. The twin detection technique explored the nonlinear optical properties of both ZnO samples. The ZnO flake-like sample exhibited higher modulation depth and saturation intensity and lower non-saturable loss than the ZnO particle-like sample. Consequently, the 1.9 μm mode-locked pulsed fiber laser generated by utilizing the ZnO flake-like based saturable absorber (SA) has demonstrated a better performance relative to its short pulse width, high SNR value, high pulse energy, and high efficiency. The results of this work could give a valuable guideline for selecting the appropriate nanomaterial-based SA for various photonics applications.