1.06 μm Q-switched ytterbium-doped fiber laser using few-layer topological insulator Bi2Se3 as a saturable absorber

Passive Q-switching of an ytterbium-doped fiber (YDF) laser with few-layer topological insulator (TI) is, to the best of our knowledge, experimentally demonstrated for the first time. The few-layer TI: Bi2Se3 (2-4 layer thickness) is firstly fabricated by the liquid-phase exfoliation method, and has a low saturable optical intensity of 53 MW/cm(2) measured by the Z-scan technique. The optical deposition technique is used to induce the few-layer TI in the solution onto a fiber ferrule for successfully constructing the fiber-integrated TI-based saturable absorber (SA). By inserting this SA into the YDF laser cavity, stable Q-switching operation at 1.06 mu m is achieved. The Q-switched pulses have the shortest pulse duration of 1.95 mu s, the maximum pulse energy of 17.9 nJ and a tunable pulse-repetition-rate from 8.3 to 29.1 kHz. Our results indicate that the TI as a SA is also available at 1 mu m waveband, revealing its potential as another broadband SA (like graphene). (C) 2013 Optical Society of America