Femtoseconds soliton mode-locked erbium-doped
fiber laser based on nickel oxide nanoparticle
saturable absorber
A. Nady
1,2
, M. H. M. Ahmed
3
, A. A. Latiff
4
, C. H. Raymond Ooi
1
, and S. W. Harun
3,
*
1
Department
of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia
2
Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Beni-Suef University, Beni Suef 62511, Egypt
3
Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia
4
Faculty of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Hang Tuah Jaya 76100,
Melaka, Malaysia
*Corresponding author: swharun@um.edu.my
Received March 19, 2017; accepted June 16, 2017; posted online July 6, 2017
We demonstrate a femtosecond mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) using a nickel oxide (NiO) as a
saturable absorber (SA). NiO nanoparticles are hosted into polyethylene oxide film and attached to fiber ferrule
in the laser cavity. The NiO-SA shows a 39% modulation depth with a 0.04 MW∕cm
2
saturation intensity. Our
ring laser cavity based on erbium-doped active fiber with managed intracavity dispersion has the ability to gen-
erate ultrashort pulses with a full width at half-maximum (FWHM) of around 2.85 nm centered at 1561.8 nm.
The pulses repeat at a frequency of 0.96 MHz and duration of 950 fs.
OCIS codes: 060.3510, 140.4050, 140.3510, 310.6845.
doi: 10.3788/COL201715.100602.
Mode-locked fiber lasers are among the best excellent
sources for generating ultrashort optical pulses. They have
a keen interest in scientific research due to their potential
advantages over other types of lasers including system
robustness, excellent beam quality, low cost, and reduced
thermal effects. They offer a variety of applications in
different fields such as optical communication, precise
optical metrology, material processing, and biomedical
diagnostics
[1–3]
.
Compared to the technique of active mode locking
[4,5]
,
which requires costly bulk modulators, the passive
mode-locking technique offers some potential advantages
including compactness, simplicity, flexibility, and low
cost. The pulses are generated passively through the inter-
nal structure of the laser cavity that gives more advan-
tages to the output pulse signal. The most broadly used
technique employs intracavity elements that allow the
self-starting of the mode-locked lasing. These materials
are called saturable absorbers (SAs) and are the key factor
in pulsed lasers as they are able to generatepulses in one of
two typical regimes, Q-switching or mode locking. SA is a
nonlinear optical modulator that exhibits intensity depen-
dent absorption in which the optical pulse itself controls
its modulation depth, and the absorption coefficient de-
creases when the light intensity increases. SAs could be
real
[6]
or artificial (devices that exploit the nonlinear effects
to mimic the real SA action), as in mode locking based on
the nonlinear polarization evolution techni que
[7,8]
.
Among the systems that can be used as real SAs, we
found that the semiconductor SA mirrors (SESAMs)
[9]
,
and graphene and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are among
the widely prop osed and demonstrated SAs due to their
broadband saturable absorption and ultrashort recovery
time
[10–12]
. However, the absence of a bandgap in graphene
that enables broadband operation could restrain some of
its applications when strong light-matter interaction is
essential. Other SA materials like graphene are transition
metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), such as molybdenum
disulfide (MoS
2
)
[13,14]
and tungsten disulfide (WS
2
)
[15,16]
.
Recently, topological insulators (TIs)
[17,18]
and black phos-
phorous (BP)
[19,20]
have been extensively investigated and
demonstrated as SAs. All these materials show distinct,
yet complementary, properties but the fabrication process
of such SAs is complicated and costly.
In 2016, transition metal oxide nanoparticles such as
zinc oxide (ZnO) and titanium dioxide (TiO
2
)
[21–23]
have
been demonstrated as SAs in a Q-switched fiber laser with
results comparable to the conventional material used as an
SA. A nickel oxide nanoparticle can be an effective SA as it
has an appropriate modulation dep th and low saturation
intensity. Moreover, using the Z-scan technique on NiO
films reveals nonlinear optical properties known as satu-
rable absorption and two-photon absorption
[24,25]
. The ab-
sorption of photon energy for NiO has been intensively
studied
[26–30]
, and its bandgap energy was reported as
3.6–4.0 eV
[31]
. Therefore, the optical transition in NiO
happens only through the direct interband transition.
Also, NiO-SA has a very simple synthesis method and
low cost.
In this Letter, we introduce a femtosecond mode-locked
erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) by using an NiO film as
an SA. The NiO-based SA is hosted into polyethylene
oxide (PEO) film, which is then sandwiched between
two fiber ferrules and incorporated into the laser cavity.
COL 15(10), 100602(2017) CHINESE OPTICS LETTERS October 10, 2017
1671-7694/2017/100602(5) 100602-1 © 2017 Chinese Optics Letters