A 1.9 µm femtosecond fiber laser using a 3D printed, all-fiberized graphene/polylactic-acid saturable absorber. (20th June 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Woo, G; Lee, J; Lee, J H
• Is Part Of: Laser physics letters. Volume 16:Number 8(2019:Aug.)
• Publication Date: 2019-06-20
• Subjects: fibre lasers -- saturable absorber -- three-dimensional (3D) printing -- graphene -- 2 µm wavelengths -- mode-locking; Lasers -- Periodicals; Physics -- Periodicals; 621.366
• DOI: 10.1088/1612-202X/ab26a9
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1612-2011

Abstract

Abstract: We experimentally demonstrate the fabrication of an all-fiberized saturable absorber (SA) suitable for ultrafast mode-locking of a fiber laser operating in the 1.9 µ m wavelength region, using three-dimensional (3D) printing technology. An all-fiberized SA was fabricated by 3D-printing a low-cost composite filament of graphene and polylactic-acid (PLA) onto a side-polished fiber. The measured modulation depths of the fabricated SA are ~5% and ~3.5% at 1.9 µ m for the transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes, respectively. Using the SA within a thulium (Tm)-holmium-codoped fiber-based ring cavity, it is shown that mode-locked pulses with a temporal width of ~924 fs are readily obtainable. It is believed that this experimental demonstration reaffirms the potential of the graphene/PLA filament-based 3D printing technique for the fabrication of practical wideband SAs.