GaSe saturable absorber for mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser at 1.04 μm

Transition-metal dichalcogenides, such as tungsten disulfide (WS2) and molybdenium disulfide (MoS2), are highly anisotropic layered materials and have attracted growing interest from basic research to practical applications due to their exotic physical property that may complement graphene and other semiconductor materials. GaSe nanosheets are found to exhibit broadband nonlinear saturable absorption property, and saturable absorbers are fabricated by depositing GaSe nanosheets on side-polished fibers. Attributing to the weak evanescent field and long interaction length, the GaSe nanosheets are not exposed to large optical intensity, which allows the saturable absorber to work at the high-power regime. The saturable absorbers are used to mode locked dispersion-managed soliton fiber lasers.