Two-Dimensional Tellurium Saturable Absorber For Ultrafast Solid-State Laser

Two-dimensional (2D) Te nanosheets were successfully fabricated through the liquid-phase exfoliation (LPE) method. The nonlinear optical properties of 2D Te nanosheets were studied by the open-aperture Z-scan technique. Furthermore, the continuous wave mode-locked Nd:YVO4 laser was successfully realized by using 2D Te as a saturable absorber (SA) for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. Ultrashort pulses as short as 5.8 ps were obtained at 1064.3 nm with an output power of 851 mW. This primary investigation indicates that the 2D Te SA is a promising photonic device in the fields of ultrafast solid-state lasers.