Monolayer graphene saturable absorber with sandwich structure for ultrafast solid-state laser

The uniform-quality, large-area, monolayer graphene saturable absorber (SA) with sandwich structure was fabricated, tested, and successfully applied for the generation of diode-pumped Yb: Y2SiO5 mode-locked laser. Without extra negative dispersion elements, the shortest pulse with duration of similar to 883 fs was obtained at 1042.6 nm with an output power of similar to 1 W. These promising experimental results suggested that the low-cost, high-quality graphene SA could potentially be employed in practical, high-power, ultrafast mode-locking laser systems. (C) 2015 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)