Ultrafast erbium-doped fiber laser mode-locked by a CVD-grown molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) saturable absorber

We demonstrate an erbium-doped fiber laser passively mode-locked by a multilayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) saturable absorber (SA). The multilayer MoS2 is prepared by the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method and transferred onto the end-face of a fiber connector. Taking advantage of the excellent saturable absorption of the fabricated MoS2-based SA, stable mode locking is obtained at a pump threshold of 31 mW. Resultant output soliton pulses have central wavelength, spectral width, pulse duration, and repetition rate of 1568.9 nm, 2.6 nm, 1.28 ps, and 8.288 MHz, respectively. The experimental results show that multilayer MoS2 is a promising material for ultrafast laser systems. (C)2014 Optical Society of America