Effects of flake size on mode-locking behavior for flake-graphene saturable absorber mirrors

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the size of graphene flakes in saturable absorber mirrors affects mode-locking performance, demonstrating that larger flakes and multi-layered structures enhance pulse shaping and bandwidth in fiber lasers.

Contribution

It provides experimental insights into the relationship between flake size, multilayer structure, and mode-locking behavior in graphene-based saturable absorbers.

Findings

Large flake size increases mode-locking bandwidth to 16nm.

Multi-layered graphene enhances pulse shaping.

Larger flakes produce mode-locked pulse trains with broader spectra.

Abstract

After advent of graphene as a saturable absorber many experiments have been conducted to produce short pulse duration pulses. Here, we have measured the properties of flake-graphene saturable absorber mirrors of various flake sizes dependent on fabrication technique. These mirrors enabled us to obtain a large mode-locking bandwidth of 16nm in an erbium-doped fiber laser. Mirrors with large flake size and multi-layered thickness induce strong pulse shaping and reflect mode-locked train of pulses with very large bandwidths.