Ytterbium-doped fiber laser passively mode locked by few-layer Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2) saturable absorber functioned with evanescent field interaction.

Juan Du,Yu Chen,Changwen Xu,Han Zhang,Qingkai Wang,Yuanjiang Xiang,Guobao Jiang,Chujun Zhao,Shuangchun Wen

doi:10.1038/srep06346

Juan Du, Yu Chen + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep06346

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Journal: Scientific Reports	Publication Date: Sep 12, 2014
Citations: 417	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Hunan University, Shenzhen University

Abstract

By coupling few-layer Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2) with fiber-taper evanescent light field, a new type of MoS2 based nonlinear optical modulating element had been successfully fabricated as a two-dimensional layered saturable absorber with strong light-matter interaction. This MoS2-taper-fiber device is not only capable of passively mode-locking an all-normal-dispersion ytterbium-doped fiber laser and enduring high power laser excitation (up to 1 W), but also functions as a polarization sensitive optical modulating component (that is, different polarized light can induce different nonlinear optical response). Thanks to the combined advantages from the strong nonlinear optical response in MoS2 together with the sufficiently-long-range interaction between light and MoS2, this device allows for the generation of high power stable dissipative solitons at 1042.6 nm with pulse duration of 656 ps and a repetition rate of 6.74 MHz at a pump power of 210 mW. Our work may also constitute the first example of MoS2-enabled wave-guiding photonic device, and potentially give some new insights into two-dimensional layered materials related photonics.

Highlights

By coupling few-layer Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2) with fiber-taper evanescent light field, a new type of MoS2 based nonlinear optical modulating element had been successfully fabricated as a two-dimensional layered saturable absorber with strong light-matter interaction
Concerning its third order nonlinear optical response, worthy of mentioning is that according to recent findings by various research groups, few-layer MoS2 had been ambiguously verified to exhibit enhanced optical saturable absorption, due to its semi-conducting property[17,18]
In order to further confirm that the nonlinear optical response is intrinsically caused by the sample itself other than some artifices, the optical transmission data had been measured by using two different cases, that is, the input power is increased from low to high power regime or vice versa

Summary

Introduction

By coupling few-layer Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2) with fiber-taper evanescent light field, a new type of MoS2 based nonlinear optical modulating element had been successfully fabricated as a two-dimensional layered saturable absorber with strong light-matter interaction. The most representative two-dimensional nano-materials with Dirac-like electronic band structure, has become one of the most heavily studied targets among optical researchers in the past few years[4,5,6,7], which are encouraged by some unique optical advantages in graphene, such as ultra-fast photo-response and ultra-wideband response ranging from ultraviolet (UV) to terahertz[8] In spite of those merits, graphene holds two intrinsic disadvantages, the zero band gap and the weak absorption co-efficiency (,2% of incident light per layer) that significantly delimit its light modulation ability and potential applications in optics related fields that may require strong light-matter interaction. The intra-cavity pulse energy can reach up to 3.1 nJ

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