TY - JOUR
T1 - Tin Telluride Quantum Dots as a Novel Saturable Absorber for Q-Switching and Mode Locking in Fiber Lasers
AU - Ahmed, Safayet
AU - Qiao, Junpeng
AU - Cheng, Ping Kwong
AU - Saleque, Ahmed Mortuza
AU - Hossain, Mohammad Ismail
AU - Zeng, Long Hui
AU - Zhao, Jia
AU - Qarony, Wayesh
AU - Tsang, Yuen Hong
N1 - Funding Information:
S.A., J.Q., and P.K.C. contributed equally to this work. This work was financially supported by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, China (Project No. 152093/18E); the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen, China (Grant Code: the science and technology innovation commission of Shenzhen (JCY20180306173805740)); and Hong Kong Scholars Program (XJ2019020).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Wiley-VCH GmbH
PY - 2021/3/18
Y1 - 2021/3/18
N2 - Tin telluride (SnTe) quantum dots (QDs) have attracted considerable interest in the optoelectronic field owing to their favorable properties over conventional QDs, such as a relatively large Bohr radius (95 nm) and low toxicity level. However, till date, the nonlinear optical properties and ultrafast photonics applications of SnTe QDs have remained unexplored. In this study, SnTe QDs with an average diameter of 74 nm (smaller than the Bohr radius of SnTe) are fabricated via a liquid-phase exfoliation method. Consequently, the nonlinear saturable absorption properties of such SnTe QDs are explored by realizing a modulation depth of 2.2% and saturable intensity of 1.67 GW cm−2. The prepared QDs are then used as saturable absorber (SA) in the erbium-doped fiber laser ring cavity system. Moreover, Q-switched and mode-locked laser pulses with a pulse width of 1.81 µs and 691 fs are generated, respectively. Harmonic mode-locking with a high repetition rate of 62.1 MHz (fifth order) is experimentally realized. This is the first demonstration, to the authors’ knowledge, of using SnTe QDs-SA for generating ultrafast laser pulses along with high-repetition-rate harmonic mode-locking pulses. Therefore, this study will establish a new research scope for SnTe QDs in ultrafast photonics, nonlinear photonics, frequency combs, and optical communications.
AB - Tin telluride (SnTe) quantum dots (QDs) have attracted considerable interest in the optoelectronic field owing to their favorable properties over conventional QDs, such as a relatively large Bohr radius (95 nm) and low toxicity level. However, till date, the nonlinear optical properties and ultrafast photonics applications of SnTe QDs have remained unexplored. In this study, SnTe QDs with an average diameter of 74 nm (smaller than the Bohr radius of SnTe) are fabricated via a liquid-phase exfoliation method. Consequently, the nonlinear saturable absorption properties of such SnTe QDs are explored by realizing a modulation depth of 2.2% and saturable intensity of 1.67 GW cm−2. The prepared QDs are then used as saturable absorber (SA) in the erbium-doped fiber laser ring cavity system. Moreover, Q-switched and mode-locked laser pulses with a pulse width of 1.81 µs and 691 fs are generated, respectively. Harmonic mode-locking with a high repetition rate of 62.1 MHz (fifth order) is experimentally realized. This is the first demonstration, to the authors’ knowledge, of using SnTe QDs-SA for generating ultrafast laser pulses along with high-repetition-rate harmonic mode-locking pulses. Therefore, this study will establish a new research scope for SnTe QDs in ultrafast photonics, nonlinear photonics, frequency combs, and optical communications.
KW - harmonic mode-locking
KW - mode locking
KW - Q-switching
KW - quantum dots
KW - saturable absorber
KW - SnTe-QDs
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097935295&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/adom.202001821
DO - 10.1002/adom.202001821
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85097935295
SN - 2195-1071
VL - 9
JO - Advanced Optical Materials
JF - Advanced Optical Materials
IS - 6
M1 - 2001821
ER -