Nanosecond passively Q-switched fiber laser in the 1.5 µm region using turmeric saturable absorber

Abstract

We report a passively Q-switched Erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) at 1566.96 nm by applying a new type of organic material based on turmeric as the saturable absorber (SA). The material was prepared by the embedding turmeric powder into polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) film. The prepared thin film was inserted between two fiber ferrules and integrated into an EDFL cavity to generate Q-switched pulses at threshold pump power of 119 mW. The maximum Q-switched pulse average power and pulse energy were 13.6 mW and 150.96 nJ, respectively under the input pump power of 255 mW. The highest pulse repetition rate and shortest pulse duration was 90.09 kHz and 725 ns, respectively. The finding indicates that the turmeric material has performed well as SA in the 1.5 µm spectral region.