An All-Optical, Actively Q-Switched Fiber Laser by an Antimonene-Based Optical Modulator

Q-switched fiber lasers are of great interest in industrial material processing, nonlinear frequency conversion, spectroscopy etc. However, passive Q-switching possesses drawbacks of degradation and failure of the saturable absorber and the difficulty in accurate modification of the repetition rate. To overcome these issues, active Q-switching that can normally modulate the cavity quality-factor by an externally-driven Q-switcher is in high demand. Herein, an actively Q-switched laser with antimonene-based all-optical modulator is devised based on the high photo-thermal efficiency (48%) and broadband response in antimonene. It is demonstrated that this actively modulated laser represents all-optically tunable output parameters (e.g., output repetition rate), environmental stability, and easy synchronization. It is anticipated that this actively antimonene-based all-optical modulator with advantages of large modulation depth, low energy consumption, and high conversion efficiency has great potential in all-optical information processing and pulsed laser engineering.