Nonlinear Absorption and Refraction of Picosecond and Femtosecond Pulses in HgTe Quantum Dot Films

We report measurements of the saturated intensities, saturable absorption, and nonlinear refraction in 70-nm thick films containing 4 nm HgTe quantum dots. We demonstrate strong nonlinear refraction and saturable absorption in the thin films using tunable picosecond and femtosecond pulses. Studies were carried out using tunable laser pulses in the range of 400–1100 nm. A significant variation of the nonlinear refraction along this spectral range was demonstrated. The maximal values of the nonlinear absorption coefficients and nonlinear refractive indices determined within the studied wavelength range were −2.4 × 10−5 cm2 W−1 (in the case of 28 ps, 700 nm probe pulses) and −3 × 10−9 cm2 W−1 (in the case of 28 ps, 400 nm probe pulses), respectively. Our studies show that HgTe quantum dots can be used in different fields e.g., as efficient emitters of high-order harmonics of ultrashort laser pulses or as laser mode-lockers.

Saturable absorption and its consequent effects in bistable erbium‐doped fiber ring laser

The linear absorption in erbium-doped fiber contributes to its excellent role in erbium-doped fiber amplifiers and lasers. A nonlinear optical contribution in the absorption of erbium-doped fiber is responsible for optical bistable action when it is present in a laser cavity. To quantify this effect, the variation of absorption coefficient is measured at different signal powers at multiple wavelengths in the C-band for different EDF lengths, and saturable absorption parameters such as the saturation power are extracted. Then the modification in the output characteristics of erbium-doped fiber ring laser with change in fiber length and in the presence of self-induced saturable absorption effect within the gain medium which leads to optical bistability is measured. By comparing the measured parameters obtained from saturable absorption in erbium-doped fiber and optical bistability in erbium-doped fiber ring laser, we estimated the length of the gain medium which acts as the saturable absorber inside the cavity of the laser. This is useful in constructing bistable lasers with optimized conditions. The temporal evolution of cavity loss and gain with the intra-cavity power and up- and down-thresholds helps in understanding why the down-threshold will be lesser than the up-threshold in bistable laser systems.

Investigation on optical switching behaviour of regenerated and non-regenerated silk by nanosecond Z-scan technique

The nonlinear optical behaviour of silk, a natural fibre, is investigated in this study. We have considered silk in the cocoon, fibre and film forms of bivoltine and multivoltine breeds. The nonlinear absorption and optical limiting studies were performed using the open aperture Z-scan technique at 1064nm. Interestingly, silk in cocoon and fibre form possess saturable absorption (SA), whereas silk in the film form exhibits reverse saturable absorption (RSA). This shift is attributed to the removal of sericin during the regeneration of silk into a film. Further, silk films exhibit optical limiting behaviour, whose limiting thresholds are in the order of 1012 W/cm2. Functional data analysis (FDA), a statistical approach, is employed to draw correlations amongst physical parameters. FDA offers good insight into the dependencies between silk varieties and their optical parameters. This helps in identifying the sample possessing the best properties.

Mo:BiVO4 Nanoparticles-Based Optical Modulator and Its Application in a 2-μm Pulsed Laser

Mo:BiVO4 nanoparticles were employed as an optical modulator in a Q-switched all-solid-state Tm:YAP laser for the first time. The nonlinear optical parameters of Mo:BiVO4 nanoparticles in the 2-μm region were characterized by measuring nonlinear transmission. Saturation intensity was 718 MW/cm2, and the modulation depth was 12.3%. A stable pulse sequence was acquired with a 70.08 kHz maximum repetition rate and an 821 ns pulse width. The maximum output average power was 153 mW, corresponding to 2.18 μJ single pulse energy and 2.67 W peak power. Although the response wavelength of Mo:BiVO4 is in visible light region, our experimental results demonstrates that a saturable absorption effect for wavelengths much longer than visible light (2 μm wavelength) is still possible due to sub-bandgap absorption. Therefore, we experimentally proved that Mo:BiVO4 nanoparticles are a great candidate for use as an optical modulator of a 2-μm pulsed laser.

Atomic Defect Induced Saturable Absorption of Hexagonal Boron Nitride in Near Infrared Band for Ultrafast Lasing Applications

Defect-induced phenomena in 2D materials has received increasing interest among researchers due to the novel properties correlated with precise modification of materials. We performed a study of the nonlinear saturable absorption of the boron-atom-vacancy defective hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) thin film at a wavelength of ~1 μm and its applications in ultrafast laser generation. The h-BN is with wide band gap of ~6 eV. Our investigation shows that the defective h-BN has a wide absorption band from visible to near infrared regimes. First-principle calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) indicate that optical property changes may be attributed to the boron-vacancy-related defects. The photoluminescence spectrum shows a strong emission peak at ~1.79 eV. The ultrafast Z-scan measurement shows saturable absorbance response has been detected for the defective h-BN with saturation intensity of ~1.03 GW/cm2 and modulation depth of 1.1%. In addition, the defective h-BN has been applied as a new saturable absorber (SA) to generate laser pulses through the passively Q-switched mode-locking configuration. Based on a Nd:YAG waveguide platform, 8.7 GHz repetition rate and 55 ps pulse duration of the waveguide laser have been achieved. Our results suggest potential applications of defective h-BN for ultrafast lasing and integrated photonics.

Numerical Investigation and Design of Electrically-Pumped Self-Pulsing Fano Laser Based on III-V/Silicon Integration

A self-pulsing III-V/silicon laser is designed based on the Fano resonance between a bus-waveguide and a micro-ring resonator, partially covered by the graphene as a nonlinear saturable absorption component. The Fano reflector etched on the straight waveguide is used as one of the cavity mirrors in the coupling region to work with the graphene induced loss and nonlinearity to achieve pulsed lasing in GHz repetition frequency. The detailed lasing characteristics are studied numerically by using the rate equation and finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations. The results show that the CMOS compatible hybrid laser can generate picosecond pulses with repetition rate at 1~3.12 GHz, which increases linearly with the injection current.

Synchronized multi-wavelength soliton fiber laser via intracavity group delay modulation

Locking of longitudinal modes in laser cavities is the common path to generate ultrashort pulses. In traditional multi-wavelength mode-locked lasers, the group velocities rely on lasing wavelengths due to the chromatic dispersion, yielding multiple trains of independently evolved pulses. Here, we show that mode-locked solitons at different wavelengths can be synchronized inside the cavity by engineering the intracavity group delay with a programmable pulse shaper. Frequency-resolved measurements fully retrieve the fine temporal structure of pulses, validating the direct generation of synchronized ultrafast lasers from two to five wavelengths with sub-pulse repetition-rate up to ~1.26 THz. Simulation results well reproduce and interpret the key experimental phenomena, and indicate that the saturable absorption effect automatically synchronize multi-wavelength solitons in despite of the small residual group delay difference. These results demonstrate an effective approach to create synchronized complex-structure solitons, and offer an effective platform to study the evolution dynamics of nonlinear wavepackets.

Generation and dynamics of soliton and soliton molecules from a VSe2/GO-based fiber laser

Recently, in addition to exploring the application of new saturable absorber devices in fiber lasers, soliton dynamics has also become a focus of current research. In this article, we report an ultrashort pulse fiber laser based on VSe2/GO nanocomposite and verify the formation process of soliton and soliton molecules by the numerical simulation. The prepared VSe2/GO-based device shows excellent saturable absorption characteristics with a modulation depth of 14.3% and a saturation absorption intensity of 0.93 MW/cm2. The conventional soliton is obtained with pulse width of 573 fs, which is currently the narrowest pulse width based on VSe2-related material, and has a signal-to-noise ratio of 60.4 dB. In addition, the soliton molecules are realized based on the VSe2/GO for the first time and have a pulse interval of ∼2.2 ps. We study the soliton dynamics through numerical simulation and reveal that before the formation of the soliton, it undergoes multiple nonlinear stages, such as soliton mode-locking, soliton splitting, and soliton oscillation. Furthermore, the results of numerical simulation are agreed well with the experimental data. These results indicate that the VSe2/GO might be another promising saturable absorber material for ultrafast photonics, and deepen the understanding of soliton dynamics in ultrafast fiber lasers.