Recent progress in optical dark pulses generation based on saturable absorber materials

Abstract

Dark pulses are optical structures with fascinating fundamental physics and have a great wealth of optical properties yet to be better explored. Since the earliest demonstration of a dark pulse, its generation was very limited, depending on specific experimental setups for its observation. However, the development of new saturable absorber (SA) materials with exceptional nonlinear optical properties have provided an efficient method for generating dark pulses in fiber laser cavities. In this perspective, this paper presents a review focused on recent progress in optical dark pulses generation based on SA materials. Specifically, materials such as graphene and its oxides, carbon nanotubes, transition metal dichalcogenides, transition metal trichalcogenides, metalloid trichalcogenides, black phosphorus, indium tin oxide, ferroferric oxide, ferromagnetic insulator, graphite oxide, and even glycerin and thulium-doped fiber will be approached here as promising candidates for SA materials. Nonlinear optical properties of these materials, configurations of experimental setups, as well as future perspectives are addressed in this review for the advancements in photonics technologies.