All-fiber passively mode-locked thulium-doped fiber ring laser using optically deposited graphene saturable absorbers

An all-fiber passively mode-locked thulium-doped fiber ring oscillator is constructed using optically deposited few layer graphene micro-sheets as the saturable absorber (SA). The mode-lock operation was achieved by 130-mW pump power at 1.5-mu m. The fiber oscillator produces 2.1-ps soliton pulse output with 80-pJ per pulse energy. The 3-dB bandwidth of the laser output was measured as 2.2-nm. The RF signal-to-noise ratio of 50-dB and sub 20-Hz 3-dB bandwidth of the laser output confirms the stable laser operation with low time jittering. This paper shows that graphene can be an effective saturable absorber for the development of mid-IR fiber mode-locked laser. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4800036]