Saturable absorption characteristics of Bi2Se3 in a 2 µm Q-switching bulk laser

Opt Express. 2020 Feb 17;28(4):5639-5647. doi: 10.1364/OE.385927.

Abstract

We investigate the saturable absorption properties of Bi2Se3 in a bulk laser operating at 2 µm wavelength region. The Bi2Se3 saturable absorber (SA) is prepared with the liquid-phase exfoliation method, which gives a saturable input flux of 4.3 mJ/cm2, a modulation depth of ∼10%, and a non-saturable absorption of 10.2%. With the Bi2Se3 saturable absorber, a passive Q-witching Tm:YAG ceramic laser is realized with a shortest pulse duration of 355 ns, a single pulse energy of 6.76 µJ and peak power of 19 W. We believe that this is the first report on Bi2Se3 Q-switched 2 µm bulk laser.