Graphene oxide paper as a saturable absorber for Er-doped fiber laser

Abstract

In this work, femtosecond pulse generation in Er-doped fiber laser using graphene oxide (GO) paper based saturable absorber (SA) is presented. The article includes the characterization of optical properties of prepared SA material and detailed description of the laser performance. Stable mode-locking operation was achieved, with 515 fs soliton pulses centered at 1559 nm. The GO paper SA is characterized by 5.4% modulation depth and 155 MW/cm2 of saturation intensity. The nearly wavelength-independent linear absorption combined with straightforward fabrication process make it a suitable material for application as a SA in low-power mode-locked fiber lasers operating in various spectral ranges.