Tellurene-based saturable absorber to demonstrate large-energy dissipative soliton and noise-like pulse generations

• Published in: Nanophotonics (Berlin, Germany) Vol. 9; no. 9; pp. 2783 - 2795
• Main Authors: Xu, Nannan, Ma, Pengfei, Fu, Shenggui, Shang, Xinxin, Jiang, Shouzhen, Wang, Shuyun, Li, Dengwang, Zhang, Huanian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin De Gruyter 01.09.2020; Walter de Gruyter GmbH
• Subjects: Absorbers; dissipative soliton; Energy; Energy dissipation; Industrial applications; large-energy mode-locked lasers; noise-like pulses; Optical properties; Optoelectronic devices; Pulse duration; Solitary waves; tellurene; Ultrafast lasers; ultrafast modulation application
• ISSN: 2192-8606; 2192-8614
• DOI: 10.1515/nanoph-2019-0545

Two-dimensional layered monoelemental materials (Xenes) with excellent optoelectronic properties have various property-related applications, such as energy, biomedicine, and optoelectronic devices. Xenes also show excellent performance in acting as saturable absorbers (SAs) for obtaining ultrafast laser operations. Few-layer tellurene as a typical Xenens exhibits distinct optoelectronic properties and promising practical application potential, and its nonlinear optical absorption characteristics and related ultrafast modulation applications have been investigated preliminarily. However, tellurene-based SAs to demonstrate large-energy mode-locked operations, which have special applications in industrial and scientific research areas, are seldom studied. In this work, we focus on the preparation of tellurene-based SAs and explore its applications in demonstrating large-energy mode-locked operations [dissipative soliton (DS) and noise-like pulses (NLP)]. For DS operation, the maximum average output power, pulse width, and largest pulse energy are 23.61 mW, 5.87 ps, and 1.94 nJ, respectively. NLP operation with a recorded average output power of 106.6 mW and a pulse energy of 8.76 nJ is also generated, which shows significant enhancement in comparison to previously reported Xenes-based works. Our contribution reveals the great potential and capacity of tellurene-based SAs in obtaining large-energy pulse operations and further promotes the explorative investigation of Xenes-based optoelectronic devices.