Ternary Transition Metal Dichalcogenides for High Power Vector Dissipative Soliton Ultrafast Fiber Laser

2D ternary transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have been studied widely by researchers from the fields of nanotechnology to materials science because of the extraordinary chemical/physical characteristics, and significant potential in nanoscale device applications. Here, the application of NbxRe(1-x)S2 nanosheets in ultrafast photonics is studied. The few-layer NbxRe(1-x)S2 nanosheets are fabricated through liquid phase exfoliation method and a NbxRe(1-x)S2-microfiber device is constructed by depositing these nanosheets onto the tapered region of a microfiber. After incorporating the NbxRe(1-x)S2-microfiber saturable absorber (SA) into a net positive dispersion Er-doped fiber (EDF) laser cavity, the generation of stable dissipative soliton pulses with a pulse duration of 1.03 ps proved as polarization-locked vector solitons upon further study. With pump power growing to 900 mW, the average output power increases to 116.9 mW without pulse splitting. Besides, the pulse width can be compressed to 149.6 fs outside the cavity by using a single-mode fiber. Compared with previous works based on 2D materials-based saturable absorbers, the NbxRe(1-x)S2-based mode-locked fiber laser proposed herein, reveals superior comprehensive performance.

Automated summary

The study focuses on the application of NbxRe(1-x)S2 nanosheets in ultrafast photonics. By incorporating the NbxRe(1-x)S2-microfiber saturable absorber into a net positive dispersion Er-doped fiber laser cavity, stable dissipative soliton pulses were generated. The NbxRe(1-x)S2-based mode-locked fiber laser demonstrated superior comprehensive performance compared to previous works based on 2D materials-based saturable absorbers.