Low-temperature synthesis of a carbon nanocage saturable absorber for pulsed erbium-doped fiber laser generation. Issue 1 (7th December 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Xu, Xintong; Chen, Jiaqi; Sun, Lang; Chu, Shaowen; Sun, Dalin; Lu, Juan; Wang, Dingdi; Ruan, Shuangchen
• Is Part Of: Journal of materials chemistry. Volume 10:Issue 1(2022)
• Page Start: 235
• Page End: 243
• Publication Date: 2021-12-07
• Subjects: Materials -- Periodicals; Chemistry, Analytic -- Periodicals; Optical materials -- Research -- Periodicals; Electronics -- Materials -- Research -- Periodicals; 543.0284
• DOI: 10.1039/d1tc04791d
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2050-7526

Abstract

Abstract : Carbon nanocages with controllable nonlinear saturable absorber properties are synthesized at low carbonization temperature, and can be used for the generation of a Q-switching or mode-locking pulsed fiber laser. Abstract : Exploring a new photonic material with low preparation cost, good optical stability and nonlinearity at the near-infrared waveband is important for ultrafast optical science and devices. Here, with a relatively low carbonization temperature (350, 400, and 450 °C), carbon nanocages (CNCs) are synthesized by pyrolyzing ethylenediamine trapped inside the zeolite ZnAlPO-12 template. It is found that the nonlinear saturable absorption properties of the as-synthesized CNCs are highly dependent on the fabrication temperature. The modulation depth of the CNCs can be decreased from 45% to 35.2% by increasing the fabrication temperature from 350 °C to 450 °C. By incorporating the CNC-based SAs that were fabricated under different temperatures into an erbium-doped fiber laser cavity, either Q-switching or mode-locking with high operational stability can be obtained in the same fiber laser cavity. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a CNC-based SA to achieve a pulsed fiber laser, which proves the excellent nonlinear optical properties of the CNCs and lays a foundation for their development in photonic devices.