Direct growth of graphene on quartz substrate as saturable absorber for femtosecond solid-state laser

We present a novel method for the direct metal-free growth of graphene on quartz substrate. The direct-grown graphene yields excellent nonlinear saturable absorption properties and is demonstrated to be suitable as a saturable absorber (SA) for an ultrafast solid-state laser. Nearly Fourier-limited 367 fs was obtained at a central wavelength of 1048 nm with a repetition rate of 105.7 MHz. At a pump power of 7.95 W, the average output power was 1.93 W and the highest pulse energy reached 18.3 nJ, with a peak power of 49.8 kW. Our work opens an easy route for making a reliable graphene SA with a mode-locking technique and also displays an exciting prospect in making low-cost and ultrafast lasers.