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Fe3O4 nanoparticle-enabled mode-locking in an erbium-doped fiber laser

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Abstract

In this paper, we have proposed and demonstrated the generation of passively mode-locked pulses and dissipative soliton resonance in an erbium-doped fiber laser based on Fe3O4 nanoparticles as saturable absorbers. We obtained self-starting mode-locked pulses with fundamental repetition frequency of 7.69 MHz and center wavelength of 1561 nm. The output of a pulsed laser has spectral width of 0.69 nm and pulse duration of 14 ns with rectangular pulse profile at the pump power of 190 mW. As far as we know, this is the firsttimethatFe3O4 nanoparticles have been developed as low-dimensional materials for passive mode-locking with rectangular pulse. Our experiments have confirmed that Fe3O4 has a wide prospect as a nonlinear photonics device for ultrafast fiber laser applications.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61605106), Funded projects for the Academic Leader and Academic Backbones, Shaanxi Normal University (No. 18QNGG006), Shaanxi International Cooperation Project (No. 2020KW-005), Starting Grants of Shaanxi Normal University (Nos. 1112010209 and 1110010717), Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. SKLST201809), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Nos. GK201802006 and 2018CSLY005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Physics and Information Technology, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, 710119, China

    Xiaohui Li, Jiajun Peng, Ruisheng Liu, Jishu Liu, Tianci Feng & Abdul Qyyum

  2. State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an, 710119, China

    Ruisheng Liu, Cunxiao Gao, Mingyuan Xue & Jian Zhang

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  1. Xiaohui Li
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  4. Jishu Liu
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Correspondence to Xiaohui Li or Cunxiao Gao.

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The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Xiaohui Li received a B.S. degree in Science from North-West University, Xi’an, China in 2006 and a Ph.D. degree from State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi’ an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an, China in 2012. He is with School of Physics and Information Technology, Shaanxi Normal University, where he is currently a researcher. His current research interests include passively mode-locked fiber laser, high-power fiber laser, and solitons in fiber.

Jiajun Peng received a B.S. degree in Computer Science from Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China in 2019. He is currently working toward an M.S. degree in Physics at School of Optical Engineering, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, China. His current research interests include passively mode-locked fiber laser, high-power fiber laser, and solitons in fiber.

Jishu Liu received a Master’s degree in Engineering from Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, China in 2020. His current research interests include passively mode-locked fiber laser and solitons in fiber.

Tianci Feng received a B.S. degree in Science from Xianyang Normal University, China in 2017 and a Master’s degree from Shaanxi Normal University, China in 2020. He majored in optics, and his current research interests include passively mode-locked fiber laser and 2D materials.

Cunxiao Gao received an M.S. degree in Optoelectronic Technology from North-West University, Xi’an, China in 2002 and a Ph.D. degree in Optics from Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. His research interests include fiber laser, fiber amplifier, and fiber nonlinear optics.

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Li, X., Peng, J., Liu, R. et al. Fe3O4 nanoparticle-enabled mode-locking in an erbium-doped fiber laser. Front. Optoelectron. 13, 149–155 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12200-020-1057-4

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