Open AccessSeveral nanosecond Nd:YVO_4 lasers Q-switched by two dimensional materials: tungsten disulfide, molybdenum disulfide, and black phosphorous
Author(s) -
Huan Liu,
Zhe Sun,
Xi Wang,
Yonggang Wang,
Guanghua Cheng
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.25.006244
Subject(s) - nanosecond , saturable absorption , materials science , laser , picosecond , tungsten disulfide , optics , femtosecond , q switching , molybdenum disulfide , optoelectronics , microsecond , fiber laser , mode locking , physics , metallurgy
Graphene-like two-dimensional (2D) materials have shown remarkable broadband saturable absorption properties. These materials were successfully applied into mode locked lasers to generate laser pulses with the pulse duration from picosecond to femtosecond. However, these novel materials have not shown good performance as far in another important aspect: Q-switched lasers. Solid-state or fiber lasers Q-switched with broadband absorbers usually generated pulses of one hundred nanosecond to several microsecond, which show weak competitiveness compared to traditional absorbers such as Cr: YAG and semiconductor saturable absorption mirror (SESAM). In this paper we utilized BP, WS 2 and MoS 2 solutions as saturable absorbers (SAs) to construct the passively Q-switched Nd:YVO 4 lasers. The pulse durations as short as 2.86 nanosecond was obtained. To the best of our knowledge, it was the first report that the pulse durations approached several nanosecond level in Q-switched lasers with liquid-form of BP, WS 2 and MoS 2 SAs.