All-fiber Yb-doped fiber laser passively mode-locking by monolayer MoS2 saturable absorber

We report on an all-fiber passively mode-locked ytterbium-doped (Yb-doped) fiber laser with monolayer molybdenum disulfide (ML-MoS2) saturable absorber (SA) by three-temperature zone chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. The modulation depth, saturation fluence, and non-saturable loss of this ML-MoS2 are measured to be 3.6%, 204.8 mu J/cm(2) and 6.3%, respectively. Based on this ML-MoS(2)SA, a passively mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser has been achieved at 979 nm with pulse duration of 13 ps and repetition rate of 16.51 MHz. A mode-locked fiber laser at 1037 nm is also realized with a pulse duration of 475 ps and repetition rate of 26.5 MHz. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report that the ML-MoS2 SA is used in an all-fiber Yb-doped mode-locked fiber laser at 980 nm. Our work further points the excellent saturable absorption ability of ML-MoS2 in ultrafast photonic applications. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.