Saturable absorber incorporating graphene oxide polymer composite through dip coating for mode-locked fiber laser

• Main Authors: Ng, E. K., Lau, K. Y., Lee, H. K., Abu Bakar, M. H., Mustapha Kamil, Y., Omar, M. F., Mahdi, M. A.
• Format: Article
• Published: Elsevier B.V. 2020
• Subjects: QC Physics
• Online Access: http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/89868/; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optmat.2019.109619

Fabrication of microfiber saturable absorbers (SA) is a tedious process. This work demonstrates a simplified method of microfiber SA fabrication by integrating graphene oxide/polymethylsiloxane (GO/PDMS) using dip-coating technique. The idea is to enhance light-matter interaction between graphene and propagating light modes within the microfiber by enhancing the binding strength and proximity of the graphene-polymer composite to the microfiber. The implementation of GO/PDMS SA in an erbium-doped fiber laser cavity has successfully generated ultrashort pulses with pulse duration of 629 fs in the C-band emission region. The success of this work contributes to better insight towards simplifying the fabrication technique of microfiber SAs.