Tellurene-based saturable absorber to demonstrate large-energy dissipative soliton and noise-like pulse generations

Nannan Xu,Shuyun Wang,Dengwang Li,Shenggui Fu,Pengfei Ma,Huanian Zhang,Xinxin Shang,Shouzhen Jiang

doi:10.1515/nanoph-2019-0545

Abstract

Abstract Two-dimensional layered monoelemental materials (Xenes) with excellent optoelectronic properties have various property-related applications, such as energy, biomedicine, and optoelectronic devices. Xenes also show excellent performance in acting as saturable absorbers (SAs) for obtaining ultrafast laser operations. Few-layer tellurene as a typical Xenens exhibits distinct optoelectronic properties and promising practical application potential, and its nonlinear optical absorption characteristics and related ultrafast modulation applications have been investigated preliminarily. However, tellurene-based SAs to demonstrate large-energy mode-locked operations, which have special applications in industrial and scientific research areas, are seldom studied. In this work, we focus on the preparation of tellurene-based SAs and explore its applications in demonstrating large-energy mode-locked operations [dissipative soliton (DS) and noise-like pulses (NLP)]. For DS operation, the maximum average output power, pulse width, and largest pulse energy are 23.61 mW, 5.87 ps, and 1.94 nJ, respectively. NLP operation with a recorded average output power of 106.6 mW and a pulse energy of 8.76 nJ is also generated, which shows significant enhancement in comparison to previously reported Xenes-based works. Our contribution reveals the great potential and capacity of tellurene-based SAs in obtaining large-energy pulse operations and further promotes the explorative investigation of Xenes-based optoelectronic devices.

Highlights

Ultrafast saturable absorbers (SAs), including mode lockers and Q-switchers, have been extensively investigated to demonstrate pulsed laser operations [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]
We focus on the preparation of tellurene-based SAs and explore its applications in demonstrating large-energy mode-locked operations [dissipative soliton (DS) and noise-like pulses (NLP)]
Tellurene-based SA was first removed from the laser cavity and replaced by a piece of tapered fiber without coating with tellurene nanosheets

Summary

Introduction

Ultrafast saturable absorbers (SAs), including mode lockers and Q-switchers, have been extensively investigated to demonstrate pulsed laser operations [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. N. Xu et al.: Tellurene-based saturable absorber to demonstrate large-energy dissipative soliton employed to propose ultrafast SAs with excellent absorption performance successfully. In 2017, antimonene-based optical devices were prepared by employing an antimonene-based mode locker, and traditional soliton (TS) operation with 552 fs pulse width under a repetition rate of 10.27 MHz was generated successfully In their contribution, antimonene-based passively Q-switched operation with a pulse duration of 1.31 μs was reported [53]. All the experiment results indicated that bismuthene-based SA exhibited excellent nonlinear saturable absorption properties and wide potential in obtaining femtosecond-level pulsed lasers. We investigated the synthesis and characterization of 2D tellurene nanosheets and its ultrafast nonlinear optical absorption properties in demonstrating largeenergy dissipative soliton (DS) and noise-like pulse (NLP) operations. The experiment results fully presented that the tellurene-based tapered SA exhibits excellent nonlinear absorption properties and large damage threshold, which promotes the development of tellurene-based optical devices in the near future

Preparation and characterization of tellurene-based SA

40 Experiment data Fitting

Experimental setup

DS operation

NLP operation