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Double Wall Carbon Nanotubes for Wide-Band, Ultrafast Pulse Generation


Type

Article

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Authors

Sun, Zhipei 
Tan, PingHeng 
Flahaut, Emmanuel 

Abstract

We demonstrate wide-band ultrafast optical pulse generation at 1, 1.5, and 2 μm using a single-polymer composite saturable absorber based on double-wall carbon nanotubes (DWNTs). The freestanding optical quality polymer composite is prepared from nanotubes dispersed in water with poly(vinyl alcohol) as the host matrix. The composite is then integrated into ytterbium-, erbium-, and thulium-doped fiber laser cavities. Using this single DWNT polymer composite, we achieve 4.85 ps, 532 fs, and 1.6 ps mode-locked pulses at 1066, 1559, and 1883 nm, respectively, highlighting the potential of DWNTs for wide-band ultrafast photonics.

Description

Keywords

double-wall carbon nanotubes, polymer composites, saturable absorber, ultrafast laser

Journal Title

ACS Nano

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1936-0851
1936-086X

Volume Title

8

Publisher

ACS Publications

Rights

DSpace@Cambridge license
Sponsorship
EPSRC (EP/E500935/1)
EPSRC (GR/S97613/01)
We acknowledge funding from EPSRC GR/ S97613/01, EP/E500935/1, the ERC Grant NANOPOTS, a Royal Society Brian Mercer Award for Innovation. A.C.F. is a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holder. V.N. wishes to acknowledge support from the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant 2DNanoCaps) and Science Foundation Ireland, P.T. from National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grants No. 11225421, F.B. from the Newton International Fellowship, Z.S. from Teknologiateollisuus TT-100, the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (No. 631610), and Aalto University, T.H. from NSFC (Grant No. 61150110487), and the Royal Academy of Engineering (Graphlex).