Q-switched and mode-locked pulsed laser with mechanically exfoliated V2ZnC MAX saturable absorber in erbium-doped all-fibre laser

Researchers have proposed diverse techniques for fabricating saturable absorbers, including aqueous acid exfoliation, evanescent coupling, and electrochemical exfoliation, with fabrication complexity and limitations that reduce saturable absorber performance and application range. We describe mechanical exfoliation and transfer as an efficient and straightforward mechanism for a MAX phase nanomaterial, V₂ZnC, expelled into a 48.926 µm thin saturable absorber film for passively Q-switched and mode-locked all-fibre lasers, exhibiting a modulation depth of 13.16%, non-saturable absorption to be 10.21%, and saturation intensity of 4.32 kW/cm² MAX-SA; all of which demonstrated its superiority with a self-starting laser. The output laser was stable with a pulse width of 7.160 µs and a repetition rate of up to 62.23 kHz at a threshold pump power of 59.53 mW in Q-switched conditions and 346.8 ns pulse width with 963.3 kHz repetition rate at a pump power of 80.41 mW in mode-locked conditions. It is a excellent saturable absorber for the use of pulse laser production in all-fibre laser cavities because of its simple manufacturing process and outstanding optical, physical, thermal, and mechanical qualities.