Tunable Q-switched fiber laser based on saturable edge-state absorption in few-layer molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂)

R. I. Woodward, E. J R Kelleher, R. C T Howe, G. Hu, F. Torrisi, T. Hasan, S. V. Popov, J. R. Taylor

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

330 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We fabricate a few-layer molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) polymer composite saturable absorber by liquid-phase exfoliation, and use this to passively Q-switch an ytterbium-doped fiber laser, tunable from 1030 to 1070 nm. Self-starting Q-switching generates 2.88 μs pulses at 74 kHz repetition rate, with over 100 nJ pulse energy. We propose a mechanism, based on edge states within the bandgap, responsible for the wideband nonlinear optical absorption exhibited by our few-layer MoS₂ sample, despite operating at photon energies lower than the material bandgap.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)31113-31122
Number of pages10
JournalOptics Express
Volume22
Issue number25
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Dec 2014
Externally publishedYes

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