As-grown uniform MoS2/mica saturable absorber for passively Q-switched mode-locked Nd:GdVO4 laser

• Large-area and high-quality MoS2 film with uniform thickness was obtained by thermally decomposing ammonium thiomolybdate.
• MoS2 SAs obtained was inserted in diode pumped Nd:GdVO4 laser cavity for laser operation.
• A stable passively Q-switched mode-locked solid-state laser operation was obtained appling MoS2 as SAs for the first time.

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) has recently attracted growing attention due to its distinctive properties and potential applications in optoelectronics and electronics. Here, large-area and high-quality MoS2 film with uniform thickness was obtained by thermally decomposing ammonium thiomolybdate. Besides, it is firstly demonstrated that the as-grown MoS2/mica can be directly inserted into Nd:GdVO4 laser cavity as saturable absorber for the output of diode-pumped passively Q-switched mode-locked pulse trains. Using the MoS2 saturable absorbers, the stable Q-switched mode-locked pulse trains with high modulation depth were realized, suggesting that the broadband MoS2 SA could potentially be employed in mode-locking laser system