We investigate the dynamics of high energy dual regime unidirectional Erbium-doped fiber laser in ring cavity, which is passively Q-switched and mode-locked through the use of an environmentally friendly graphene filament-chitin film-based saturable absorber. The graphene-chitin passive saturable absorber allows the option for different operating regimes of the laser by simple adjustment of the input pump power, yielding, simultaneously, highly stable and high energy Q-switched pulses at 82.08 nJ and 1.08 ps mode-locked pulses. The finding can have applications in a multitude of fields due to its versatility and the regime of operation that is on demand.
Keywords: chitin; fiber laser; graphene; mode-locking; q-switching.