The generation of nanosecond pulses at C-band region with titanium dioxide as a saturable absorber

Abstract A passive mode-locked in an erbium-doped fiber laser with titanium dioxide (TiO2) film as a saturable absorber (SA) has been successfully demonstrated. The film is fabricated using a liquid phase exfoliation, which offers a simple and low-cost method. The self-starting mode-locked was created by inserting a 200-meter-long single-mode fiber into the laser cavity to balance the nonlinearity and dispersion of the cavity. The pulses operate stably at a central wavelength of 1560 nm. The pulse repetition rate was almost fixed at 988 kHz at a tuneable pump power from 145.83 mW to 187.04 mW. The repetition rate shows excellent stability with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 69 dB whilst the pulse width was virtually constant at 230 ns. The maximum output power was measured at 2.17 mW, eliciting maximum pulse energy of 2.19 nJ. This experiment demonstrates that stable mode-locked pulsed can be generated using TiO2-SA.