102 fs pulse generation from a long-term stable, inkjet-printed black phosphorus-mode-locked fiber laser

Jin, X and Hu, G and Zhang, M and Hu, Y and Albrow-Owen, T and Howe, RCT and Wu, TC and Wu, Q and Zheng, Z and Hasan, T (2018) 102 fs pulse generation from a long-term stable, inkjet-printed black phosphorus-mode-locked fiber laser. Optics Express, 26. pp. 12506-12513.

Abstract

© 2018 Optical Society of America We demonstrate a long-term stable, all-fiber, erbium-doped femtosecond laser mode-locked by a black phosphorus saturable absorber. The saturable absorber, fabricated by scalable and highly controllable inkjet printing technology, exhibits strong nonlinear optical response and is stable for long-term operation against intense irradiation, overcoming a key drawback of this material. The oscillator delivers self-starting, 102 fs stable pulses centered at 1555 nm with 40 nm spectral bandwidth. This represents the shortest pulse duration achieved from black phosphorus in a fiber laser to date. Our results demonstrate the great potential for black phosphorus as an excellent candidate for long-term stable ultrashort pulse generation.