title: Graphene-clad microfibre saturable absorber for ultrafast fibre lasers.
abstract: Graphene, whose absorbance is approximately independent of wavelength, allows broadband light-matter interactions with ultrafast responses. The interband optical absorption of graphene can be saturated readily under strong excitation, thereby enabling scientists to exploit the photonic properties of graphene to realize ultrafast lasers. The evanescent field interaction scheme of the propagating light with graphene covered on a D-shaped fibre or microfibre has been employed extensively because of the nonblocking configuration. Obviously, most of the fibre surface is unused in these techniques. Here, we exploit a graphene-clad microfibre (GCM) saturable absorber in a mode-locked fibre laser for the generation of ultrafast pulses. The proposed all-surface technique can guarantee a higher efficiency of light-graphene interactions than the aforementioned techniques. Our GCM-based saturable absorber can generate ultrafast optical pulses within 1.5 μm. This saturable absorber is compatible with current fibre lasers and has many merits such as low saturation intensities, ultrafast recovery times, and wide wavelength ranges. The proposed saturable absorber will pave the way for graphene-based wideband photonics.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710119, China.|State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, Department of Optical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
authors.forename: X M
authors.initials: XM
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710119, China.
authors.forename: H R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710119, China.
authors.forename: Y D
authors.initials: YD
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710119, China.
authors.forename: G W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710119, China.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, Department of Optical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
authors.forename: X Q
authors.initials: XQ
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710119, China.
authors.forename: X K
authors.initials: XK
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710119, China.
authors.forename: D D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710119, China.
authors.forename: X X
authors.initials: XX
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710119, China.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710119, China.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710119, China.
authors.forename: W L
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710119, China.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, Department of Optical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
authors.forename: L M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Tong