Sub-200 fs soliton mode-locked fiber laser based on bismuthene saturable absorber

Few-layer bismuthene is an emerging two-dimensional material in the fields of physics, chemistry, and material science. However, its nonlinear optical property and the related photonics device have been seldom studied so far. Here. we demonstrate a sub-200 fs soliton mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) using a microfiber-based bismuthene saturable absorber for the fast time, to the best of our knowledge. The bismuthene nanosheets are synthesized by the sonochemical exfoliation method and transferred onto the taper region of a microfiber by the optical deposition method. Stable soliton pulses centered at 1561 nm with the shortest pulse duration of about 193 fs were obtained. Our findings unambiguously imply that apart from its fantastic electric and thermal properties, few-layer bismuthene may also possess attractive optoclectronic properties for nonlinear photonics, such as mode-lockers, Q-switchers, optical modulators and so on. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OS.A Open Access Publishing Agreement