Showing papers by "Hongyu Luo published in 2015"

3-μm Mid-infrared pulse generation using topological insulator as the saturable absorber.

Abstract: We report an 1150-nm diode-pump passively Q-switched Ho3+-doped ZBLAN fiber laser using topological insulator (TI): Bi2Te3 as the saturable absorber (SA). The TI: Bi2Te3 prepared using the cost-effective hydrothermal intercalation/exfoliation method was dropped onto a CaF2 substrate to fabricate the free-space SA component. It has a low saturable peak intensity of 2.12 MW/cm2 and a high modulation depth of 51.3% measured at 2 μm. Inserting this component into a linear-cavity Ho3+-doped ZBLAN fiber laser, stable Q-switched pulses at 2979.9 nm were obtained with the repetition rate of 81.96 kHz and pulse duration of 1.37 μs. The achieved maximum output power and pulse energy were 327.4 mW at a slope efficiency of 11.6% and 3.99 μJ, respectively, only limited by the available pump power. Our work reveals that the TIs are absolutely a class of promising and reliable SAs for pulse generation at 3-μm mid-infrared waveband.

Mid-infrared passively switched pulsed dual wavelength Ho3+-doped fluoride fiber laser at 3 μm and 2 μm

Abstract: Cascade transitions of rare earth ions involved in infrared host fiber provide the potential to generate dual or multiple wavelength lasing at mid-infrared region. In addition, the fast development of saturable absorber (SA) towards the long wavelengths motivates the realization of passively switched mid-infrared pulsed lasers. In this work, by combing the above two techniques, a new phenomenon of passively Q-switched ~3 μm and gain-switched ~2 μm pulses in a shared cavity was demonstrated with a Ho3+-doped fluoride fiber and a specifically designed semiconductor saturable absorber (SESAM) as the SA. The repetition rate of ~2 μm pulses can be tuned between half and same as that of ~3 μm pulses by changing the pump power. The proposed method here will add new capabilities and more flexibility for generating mid-infrared multiple wavelength pulses simultaneously that has important potential applications for laser surgery, material processing, laser radar, and free-space communications, and other areas.

Tunable Fe(2+):ZnSe passively Q-switched Ho(3+)-doped ZBLAN fiber laser around 3 μm.

Abstract: We report a tunable passively Q-switched Ho(3+)-doped ZBLAN fiber laser at 3 μm waveband using a Fe(2+):ZnSe crystal as saturable absorber (SA) and a plane ruled grating in Littrow configuration as wavelength tuning element. Stable pulse trains with ~85 nm tuning range from 2919.1 nm to 3004.2 nm and spectrum bandwidths of ~1 nm were achieved for the Fe(2+):ZnSe crystal with an initial transmission (IT) of 69%. Pulse duration increased from 1.23 μs to 2.35 μs and repetition rate decreased from 96.1 kHz to 43.56 kHz with the extension towards long wavelength direction. With the IT increasing to 79% and then 89%, though the available tuning range was slightly shortened, higher output power, pulse energy and slope efficiency were obtained with the slightly increased pulse duration and repetition rate. Maximum output power of 337 mW at a slope efficiency of 11.44% and pulse energy of 5.64 μJ were achieved at ~2970 nm and ~2991 nm, respectively. High signal noise ratio (SNR) of over 50 dB across the whole tuning range for the three ITs Fe(2+):ZnSe crystals indicated the stable Q-switching. To our knowledge, this is the first reported wavelength tunable passively Q-switched ZBLAN fiber laser.