Graphene oxide mode-locked femtosecond erbium-doped fiber lasers

We demonstrated the femtosecond erbium-doped all-fiber lasers mode-locked with graphene oxide, which can be conveniently obtained from natural graphite by simple oxidation and ultra-sonication process. With proper dispersion management in an all-fiber ring cavity, the laser directly generated 200 fs pulses at a repetition rate of 22.9 MHz and the average output power was 5.8 mW. With the variation of net cavity dispersion, output pulses with pulse width of 0.2 similar to 3 ps were obtained at a repetition rate of 22.9 similar to 0.93 MHz. These results are comparable with those of graphene saturable absorbers and the superiority of easy fabrication and hydrophilic property of graphene oxide will facilitate its potential applications for ultrafast photonics. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America