Mode-locked fiber laser based on ZrTe2 saturable absorber

Abstract

In recent years, the diversity of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have made them widely used in fiber lasers for the saturable absorption effect. Zirconium ditelluride (ZrTe₂), as a member of TMDs, has a high anti-damage threshold, and it exhibits excellent and controllable photoelectric performance due to the anisotropy of the band structure. In this paper, we prepared a ZrTe₂ saturable absorber film for passively mode-locking operation in an erbium-doped fiber laser and obtained an optical pulse output with a central wavelength of 1564.4 nm and a repetition frequency of 5.81 MHz. The spectral 3-dB bandwidth is 0.51 nm, the pulse width is 2.98 ps, and the signal-to-noise ratio of the fundamental frequency is 60 dB. These results show the potential of ZrTe₂ as a new saturable absorber material for generating ultrashort pulses, and this is the first demonstration for mode-locked fiber lasers based on ZrTe₂ material.