Nonlinear Saturable Absorption of Liquid-Exfoliated Molybdenum/Tungsten Ditelluride Nanosheets

Molybdenum disulfi de (MoS2) and tungsten disulfi de (WS2), two representative transition metal dichalcogenide materials, have captured tremendous interest for their unique electronic, optical, and chemical properties. Compared with MoS2 and WS2, molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2) and tungsten ditelluride (WTe2) possess similar lattice structures while having smaller bandgaps (less than 1 eV), which is particularly interesting for applications in the near-infrared wavelength regime. Here, few-layer MoTe2/WTe2 nanosheets are fabricated by a liquid exfoliation method using sodium deoxycholate bile salt as surfactant, and the nonlinear optical properties of the nanosheets are investigated. The results demonstrate that MoTe2/WTe2 nanosheets exhibit nonlinear saturable absorption property at 1.55 mu m. Soliton mode-locking operations are realized separately in erbium-doped fiber lasers utilizing two types of MoTe2/WTe2-based saturable absorbers, one of which is prepared by depositing the nanosheets on side polished fibers, while the other is fabricated by mixing the nanosheets with polyvinyl alcohol and then evaporating them on substrates. Numerous applications may benefit from the nonlinear saturable absorption features of MoTe2/WTe2 nanosheets, such as visible/near-infrared pulsed laser, materials processing, optical sensors, and modulators.