Er-doped mode-locked fiber laser with WS2/fluorine mica (FM) saturable absorber

The report presents conventional soliton operation in an anomalous-dispersion fiber laser with a novel WS2 saturable absorber (SA) based on fluorine mica (FM) substrate. Compared to organic host material such as polymer composite, FM has higher softening temperature, heat dissipation and laser damage threshold. In this work, the modulation depth (MD) and non-saturable loss (NL) of WS2/FM SA are measured to be 3.1% and 15%, respectively. By employing the SA, a stable conventional soliton mode-locked fiber laser is achieved. The repetition rate is 8.2 MHz and the pulse duration is 830 fs. The fiber laser works in mode locking operation for at least ten days and no damage of the SA is observed. The results indicate that WS2/FM material is an ideal SA for Er-doped fiber (EDF) lasers.