Lawsone dye material as potential saturable absorber for Q-switched erbium doped fiber laser

In this paper, lawsone (2-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone), a natural dye material is proposed and demonstrated as a saturable absorber (SA) for passive Q-switching operation in Erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) cavity. The lawsone-based SA was fabricated using a liquid-phase exfoliation technique. A tiny piece of the lawsone film was then cut and slot-in between two fiber ferrules so that it can easily be incorporated into a laser cavity as a Qswitcher. A stable Q-switched pulse train operation was observed with the repetition rate of 80 kHz and pulse width as narrow as 1.7 mu s at 1564 nm wavelength. The maximum pulse energy and average power were obtained to be 53 nJ and 4.3 mW, respectively. The results indicate that the lawsone material can be a suitable SA for Qswitched pulse laser operating at the 1.5-mu m region. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time lawsone material is utilized as a SA device for generating Q-switched pulse.

Automated summary

In this paper, lawsone is proposed and demonstrated as a saturable absorber for passive Q-switching in an Erbium-doped fiber laser cavity. Stable Q-switched pulse operation was achieved with narrow pulse width, indicating the potential of lawsone as a suitable SA for Q-switched pulse laser in the 1.5-micron region.