Cu2Te-PVA as saturable absorber for generating Q-switched erbium-doped fiber laser

• Main Authors: Ahmad, Harith, Azmy, Nur Fatini, Reduan, Siti Aisyah, Yusoff, Norazriena, Kadir, Zamzuri Abdul
• Format: Article
• Published: Springer 2021
• Subjects: QC Physics; TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/27838/

A passively Q-switched erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) using copper telluride-polyvinyl alcohol (Cu2Te-PVA) thin film as saturable absorber (SA) was proposed and demonstrated. The generated Q-switched pulses could be tuned over a tuning range of 44 nm from 1530 to 1574 nm, with the addition of a tunable bandpass filter into the C-band laser cavity. The pump power of 130.1 to 221.0 mW was used to observe the output pulses, which had repetition rates from 51.3 to 61.7 kHz, with a minimum pulse width of around 1.84 mu s and highest pulse energy of 7 nJ. The generated pulses were stable with a constant signal to noise ratio value of around 51 dB when tested under continuous operation over a period of 60 min. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of Q-switched pulses induced by a Cu2Te-PVA based SA in an EDFL.