• Shang, J.; Feng, T.; Zhao, S.; Li, T.; Ma, J.; Xu, X.; Koch, N.; Zhao, J.: Chemical vapor deposition synthesized monolayer MoS2 for Q-switching pulse generation in the 2 µm spectral region. Optical Materials Express 10 (2020), p. 2321-2329

10.1364/ome.402930
Open Access Version

Abstract:
We demonstrate a monolayer MoS2-based saturable absorber (SA) synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The as-grown SA has high spatial homogeneity and shows excellent saturable absorption properties in the 2 µm wavelength region. A higher modulation depth of 21.3% and lower saturation intensity of 0.47 MW/cm2 are achieved compared with those of other documented MoS2 SAs to date. When applying the MoS2 SA to a Tm:YAG ceramic laser, we observe a Q-switched pulse train with a shortest pulse duration of 388.0 ns under a pulse repetition rate of 82 kHz, which corresponds to a single pulse energy of 5.4 uJ and a peak power of 14 W. We believe that CVD constitutes an effective method towards high-quality MoS2 saturable absorbers that possess remarkable application potential in the 2 µm wavelength region.