Abstract

Abstract Transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) and black phosphorus (BP) are typical 2D materials with layer-dependent bandgaps, which are emerging as promising saturable absorption materials for pulsed fiber lasers. In this review, we discuss the nonlinear saturable absorption properties of TMDCs and BP, and summarize the recent progress of saturable absorbers from fabrication methods to incorporation strategies. The performances of saturable absorbers and the properties of Q-switched/mode-locked fiber lasers at different wavelengths are summarized and compared to give a comprehensive insight to optical modulators based on TMDCs/BP, and to promote their practical applications in nonlinear optics.

Highlights

  • Attributed to their unique properties of compact structure, good flexibility, and low cost, pulsed fiber lasers are excellent light sources for various applications, such as optical communications [1, 2], biological photonics [3, 4], In the past several decades, the most famous saturable absorber (SA), semiconductor saturable absorbers (SAs) mirror (SESAM), has been widely used in commercial laser systems

  • Transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) and black phosphorus (BP) are typical 2D materials with layerdependent bandgaps, which are emerging as promising saturable absorption materials for pulsed fiber lasers

  • 2D materials revolutionized the study from nonlinear optics [15], optoelectronics [16,17,18,19,20,21], medical treatment [22,23,24], and energy storage [25,26,27] attributing to their remarkable physical properties and the unique dimensionality effect [28, 29]

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Summary

Introduction

Attributed to their unique properties of compact structure, good flexibility, and low cost, pulsed fiber lasers are excellent light sources for various applications, such as optical communications [1, 2], biological photonics [3, 4],. Liu et al.: Recent progress of pulsed fiber lasers insulators such as Bi2Te3, Sb2Te3 and Bi2Se3 have been proved to exhibit a broadband saturable absorption property [39] and Q-switched or mode-locked fiber lasers have been reported at 1.06 μm [40, 41], 1.55 μm [42, 43], and 2 μm [44, 45] After that, another type of 2D material, transitionmetal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) [46,47,48,49], has attracted rising attention due to the layer-dependent bandgap and high nonlinear optical response. The performances of Q-switched and mode-locked fiber lasers at different wavelengths are summarized in this review

Fabrication methods
Saturable absorption properties
Incorporation methods
Passively mode-locked fiber lasers based on TMDCs and BP SAs
Mode-locked fiber lasers at mid-infrared wavelengths
Passively Q-switched fiber lasers based on TMDCs and BP SAs
Findings
Summary and outlook

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