Effects of carbon nanotubes and graphene oxide absorbers on the noise of mode-locked fiber lasers

TL;DR

This study investigates how carbon nanotubes and graphene oxide as saturable absorbers influence phase noise in mode-locked fiber lasers, demonstrating significant noise reduction through material optimization.

Contribution

First experimental analysis linking properties of carbon nanomaterials to phase noise performance in ultrafast fiber lasers.

Findings

Achieved over 10 dB phase noise reduction at 10 kHz

Identified key material properties affecting noise suppression

Demonstrated optimized carbon-based SAs improve laser pulse quality

Abstract

Phase noise is very important for the ultrafast pulse application in telecommunication, ultrafast diagnose, material science, and biology. In this paper, two types of carbon nano-materials, single-wall carbon nanotube and graphene oxide, are investigated for noise suppression in ultrafast photonics. Various properties of the wall-paper SAs, such as saturable intensity, optical absorption and degree of purity, are found to be key factors determining the phase noise of the ultrafast pulses. A reduced-noise femtosecond fiber laser is experimentally demonstrated by optimizing the above parameters of carbon material based SAs. The phase noise reduction more than 10 dB at 10 kHz can be obtained in the experiments. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the relationship between different carbon material based SAs and the phase noise of mode-locked lasers has been investigated. This work will pave the way to get a high-quality ultrashort pulse in passively mode-locked fiber lasers.