Ternary transition metal dichalcogenides for passively Q-switched Er-doped fiber laser applications

Abstract

A ternary transition metal dichalcogenide based saturable absorber was proposed and employed to generate the Q-switching pulses in a fiber laser. The fabricated MoxTa1−xSe2-based saturable absorber exhibits excellent nonlinear optical absorption properties with saturable intensity of 19.25 MW/cm2 and modulation depth of 19.89%. After incorporating the MoxTa1−xSe2-based saturable absorber into a fiber laser cavity, this fiber laser worked at passively Q-switched state. Moreover, by enhancing the pump power up to 900 mW, the output power was enhanced to 11.86 mW and the pulse width was reduced down to 2.2 μs. The repetition frequency was adjustable in the extent of 94.15–196.31 kHz, and the signal-to-noise ratio was as large as 73 dB. Our results indicate that the proposed MoxTa1−xSe2 materials possess remarkable nonlinear optical characteristics that can be considered as a powerful candidate for pulsed lasers applications.