Copper phthalocyanines as a mode-locker in an Er-doped fiber laser

• Main Authors: Al-Asaadi, Sana S. H., Salam, Sameer, Azooz, Salam M., Alghamdi, Turki Ali, Diblawe, Abdulkadir Mukhtar, Nizamani, Bilal, Harun, Sulaiman Wadi
• Format: Article
• Published: Optica Publishing Group 2024
• Subjects: TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/45669/; https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.509882

We demonstrate a mode -locked erbium -doped fiber laser (EDFL) utilizing copper phthalocyanines (CuPc) as a saturable absorber (SA) for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. The investigated SA was prepared using a simple, low-cost and straightforward technique, whereby the CuPc powder was embedded into polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to form a thin film. The thin film acted as a mode -locker when it was incorporated into the EDFL cavity to produce output pulses at a repetition rate of 1.8 MHz with a pulse duration of 1.98 ps. The frequency spectrum showed a signal-to-noise ratio as high as 55 dB, which indicates the stability of the mode -locking operation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to report using CuPc as a mode -locker. (c) 2024 Optica Publishing Group