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Fabrication, characterization and mode locking application of single-walled carbon nanotube/polymer composite saturable absorbers

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Abstract

We present the fabrication of a high optical quality single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) composite film. The composites demonstrate strong saturable absorption at ∼1.5 μm, the spectral range for optical communications. By measuring the nonlinear transmission of a sub-picosecond pump pulse through the film, we were able to deduce a saturation fluence of ∼13.9 μJ/cm2 and a modulation depth ∼16.9% (in absorption) at a high pulse fluence ∼200 μJ/cm2. Transient saturable absorption is investigated by measuring the transmitted autocorrelation traces at various incident power levels. Observed side-peak suppression indicates a fast recovery time on the scale of ∼1 ps for our saturable absorber devices. Furthermore, we use these SWNT-PVA composite saturable absorbers as mode-lockers in an Er3+ fiber ring laser and achieve ∼560 fs pulse generation with good jitter performance and long term stability. The laser performance is also associated with the parameters of our SWNT based saturable absorber.

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Acknowledgement

We thank F. Hennrich for providing laser ablation nanotubes. We acknowledge funding from Advance Nanotech Inc., EPSRC grants GR/S97613/01, EP/E500935/1, ETRI Ministry of Information and Communication, Republic of Korea, Project No. A1100-0602-0101, A. C. F. from the Royal Society and The Leverhulme Trust.

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  1. Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, 9 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 0FA, UK

    F. Wang, A. G. Rozhin, Z. Sun, V. Scardaci, R. V. Penty, I. H. White & A.C. Ferrari

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  1. F. Wang
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  2. A. G. Rozhin
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  3. Z. Sun
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  4. V. Scardaci
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  5. R. V. Penty
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  6. I. H. White
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  7. A.C. Ferrari
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Correspondence to F. Wang.

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Wang, F., Rozhin, A.G., Sun, Z. et al. Fabrication, characterization and mode locking application of single-walled carbon nanotube/polymer composite saturable absorbers. Int J Mater Form 1, 107–112 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12289-008-0371-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12289-008-0371-y

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