Q-Switched Thulium-Doped Fiber Laser Using Vanadium Oxide Saturable Absorber
M. F. A. Rahman, M. F. M. Rusdi, S. W. Harun and M. Yasin
We experimentally demonstrate a passively Q-switched Thulium-doped fiber laser (TDFL) operation by using a Vanadium oxides (V O ) as a saturable absorber (SA). As a kind of transition metal oxide, the V O has a large nonlinear optical response with a fast response time for SA. By embedding the synthesized V O into a poly ethylene glycol (PEO) film and incorporating in a TDFL cavity, a Q-switching pulses train was successfully generated to operate at 1968 nm wavelength. A stable passively Q-switched EDFL pulses with maximum output pulse energy of 154.92 nJ, repetition rate of 29.42 kHz, and pulse width of 3.72 μs are achieved when the input pump power is 436.5 mW at the wavelength of 1552 nm. The laser features a low threshold pump power of 271 mW.
Keywords: 2 μm fibre laser, Q-switched laser, metal oxide material