Widely-tunable, passively Q-switched erbium-doped fiber laser with few-layer MoS2 saturable absorber

We propose and demonstrate a MoS2-based passively Q-switched Er-doped fiber laser with a wide tuning range of 1519.6-1567.7 nm. The few-layer MoS2 nano-platelets are prepared by the liquid-phase exfoliation method, and are then made into polymer-composite film to construct the fiber-compatible MoS2 saturable absorber (SA). It is measured at 1560 nm wavelength, that such MoS2 SA has the modulation depth of similar to 2% and the saturable optical intensity of similar to 10 MW/cm(2). By further inserting the filmy MoS2-SA into an Er-doped fiber laser, stable Q-switching operation with a 48.1 nm continuous tuning from S-to C-waveband is successfully achieved. The shortest pulse duration and the maximum pulse energy are 3.3 mu s and 160 nJ, respectively. The repetition rate and the pulse duration under different operation conditions have been also characterized. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first demonstration of MoS2 Q-switched, widely-tunable fiber laser. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America