2 GHz passively harmonic mode-locked fiber laser by a microfiber-based topological insulator saturable absorber

We report on the generation of passive harmonic mode locking of a fiber laser using a microfiber-based topological insulator (TI) Bi2Te3 saturable absorber (SA). The optical deposition method was employed to fabricate the microfiber-based TISA. By virtue of the excellent nonlinear optical property of the proposed TISA, the fiber laser could operate at the pulse repetition rate of 2.04 GHz under a pump power of 126 mW, corresponding to the 418th harmonic of fundamental repetition frequency. The results demonstrate that the microfiber-based TI photonic device can operate as both the high nonlinear optical component and the SA in fiber lasers, and could also find other applications in the related fields of photonics. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America