Open AccessOptical properties and applications of molybdenum disulfide/SiO2 saturable absorber fabricated by sol-gel technique
Author(s) -
Ruidong Lv,
Zhendong Chen,
Sicong Liu,
Jiang Wang,
Yongfang Li,
Yonggang Wang,
Yishan Wang
Publication year - 2019
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.27.006348
Subject(s) - materials science , tetraethyl orthosilicate , sol gel , doping , saturable absorption , molybdenum disulfide , fiber laser , optics , laser , ytterbium , wavelength , optoelectronics , composite material , nanotechnology , physics
We investigate a new type of molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 )-doped sol-gel glass saturable absorber (SA) fabricated by sol-gel technique. The reagents used for the sol-gel glass contain Tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS), ethanol, water, and hydrochloric acid. Different from the traditional ways of fabricating SAs, the MoS 2 in our method is encapsulated by inorganic sol-gel glass instead of polymer compound with low laser damage resistance, which greatly increases the optical damage threshold of MoS 2 SA. The MoS 2 -doped sol-gel glass as an SA is experimentally demonstrated in a passively mode-locked ytterbium-doped fiber laser (YDFL). Stable mode-locked pulse trains are successfully generated in the normal dispersion regime with a pulse width of 13.8 ps and the average output power of 34.6 mW. The fluctuation of the central wavelength and spectral bandwidth is as low as 0.9% in one week, which indicates that the mode-locking state has good environmental stability. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first example of sol-gel glass SA for ultrafast pulses generated in YDFL, which potentially gives a new approach to improve optical damage threshold and long-term working stability for broadband absorbers.