Tunable passively Q-switched erbium-doped fiber laser with Chitosan/MoS2 saturable absorber

• Main Authors: Ahmad, Harith, Aidit, Siti Nabila, Ooi, Shok Ing, Tiu, Zian Cheak
• Format: Article
• Published: Elsevier 2018
• Subjects: Q Science (General); QC Physics
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/22667/; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optlastec.2018.01.032

Chitosan, an organic polymer derived from the outer skeletons of crustacean and in the cell wall of fungi is explored as polymer host to develop thin film saturable absorber (SA). As a polymer, Chitosan shows high thermal stability as well as significant transmission characteristics. The highly transparent polymer serves as a good host for SA materials, and a composite Chitosan/MoS2 thin film is demonstrated to successfully generate stable Q-switched lasing output at operating wavelength of 1561.5 nm. At maximum pump power of 280.5 mW, the generated pulse exhibits maximum pulse repetition rate and pulse energy of 79.4 kHz and 43.69 nJ respectively as well as minimum pulse width of 1.02 μs. The overall efficiency of the laser cavity with the Chitosan/MoS2 thin film SA is approximately 0.93%. These results reflect the outstanding performance of Chitosan/MoS2 SA as compared to other MoS2 SA prepared using mechanical exfoliation and optical deposition technique. Moreover, the Chitosan polymer is shown to be a highly potential host in the SA fabrication process due to its promising performance which is comparable to PVA.