Passively Q-Switched Yb:Lu_0.74Y_0.23La_0.01VO₄ Laser Based on MoTe₂ Saturable Absorber

Abstract

A passively-Q-switched Yb:Lu1-x-yYxLayVO4 laser based on a two-dimension (2D) molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2) saturable absorber (SA) is reported for the first time to the best of our knowledge. High quality few layered 2D MoTe2 nanosheets were fabricated by liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) method and used as the SA, whose saturable absorption properties around 1.0 μm were characterized with a saturation fluence of 3.02 μJ/cm2 and a modulation depth of 8.3%. In the passively Q-switched laser operation, the shortest pulse width of 500 ns was obtained with an average output power of 0.33 W at a pulse repetition rate of 117 kHz, corresponding to the maximum single pulse energy of 2.8 μJ and the peak power of 5.6 W.

Keywords

• Solid lasers
• optical saturation
• nonlinear optics