Glass-Hosted Carbon Nanotubes as a Saturable Absorber for Ultrafast Laser

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) have emerged as promising material for saturable absorbers in laser mode locking, given the fast recovery time and a broad spectral range in the near infared. SWCNT-based saturable absorbers are usually fabricated using organic polymers as matrix. [1] However, polymer matrix can decompose on higher temperatures or in high energy light exposition. Compared to the polymer, sol-gel soft glass has a higher optical and environmental damage threshold, and mechanical stability. [2] Therefore, a sol-gel process for the fabrication for glass matrix can be a better way to produce thermally stable SWCNT composites. [3] In our work, the belt-like SWCNT glass composite was achieved employing the sol-gel process at room temperature. Importantly, the composite was inserted into a fiber ring laser to achieve dissipative soliton (DS) for the first time. Furthermore, combined with characterizing properties of the sample using scanning electron microscope (SEM), which indicate that SWNT still preserves the nonlinearity and has a good dispersion in the ceramic host.