Q-switched Nd:YVO4 laser operating at 1064 nm with NiPS3 nanoflakes onto a silica metasurface as saturable absorbers

In this work, we show that a metasurface can be used to improve the performance of the two-dimensional (2D) material saturable absorber in a Nd:YVO 4 solid-state laser. To our knowledge, the hybrid saturable absorber was fabricated by spraying the NiPS 3 nanoflakes onto a silica metasurface for the first time. It is shown that the optical absorption, modulation depth, saturation intensity, and ultrafast recovery time of the metasurface-NiPS 3 saturable absorber exhibit better performance than the 2D material control device. In a proof -of -concept experiment, the Q -switched pulses with a pulse duration of 20.5 ns, repetition rate of 4.35 MHz, output power of 2.3 W, peak power of 30.61 W, and pulse energy of 0.63 mu J were experimentally demonstrated. These findings suggest that a hybrid saturable absorber is a promising candidate for developing pulsed laser and optical modulators. (c) 2024 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement