Pulsed laser performance of erbium doped fiber laser using titanium dioxide nanoparticles as saturable absorber

Abstract

In this work, titanium dioxide TiO2 nanoparticles embedded in thin composite film was used as saturable absorber (SA) in erbium doped fiber (EDF) laser. The thin film was prepared by mixing TiO2 nanoparticles with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as host. Upon inserting the SA in a laser cavity, the output spectrum shifts to 1533.4 nm from 1563.8 nm. The laser performance was evaluated in the pump power range of 76 mW - 131 mW. The repetition rate of the mode-locked pulses was 989.0 kHz with a pulse width of 1.26 ps measured. The slope efficiency of the system is 8.58%. Maximum average power and peak power generated from the laser is 11.69 mW and 9.41 kW, respectively. This work explored the potential of TiO2-PVA thin film as saturable absorber for 1.5 µm laser system.