Abstract

Transition metal dichalcogenides have recently been considered the candidates for saturable absorption materials due to their advantages in both electronic and optoelectronic. Compared with MoS₂ and WS₂, MoTe₂ exhibits smaller bandgap. As a result, MoTe₂ owns inherent advantages in the near-infrared applications. In this paper, the MoTe₂ saturable absorber (SA) were prepared by the magnetron sputtering deposition method. Owing to the enhanced light-materials interaction between MoTe₂ and evanescent field from the microfiber, the modulation depth of the MoTe₂ SA was up to 26.97%. By assembling the MoTe₂ SA into the erbium-doped fiber laser, the mode-locked fiber laser at 1.5 μm was demonstrated. The pulse duration of 111.9 fs was proved to be the shortest in the fiber lasers based on transition metal dichalcogenides. Moreover, the mode-locked fiber laser maintains the long-term stability. Our results suggest that the proposed MoTe₂ SA is promising for the ultrashort pulse generation and stable system operation.

© 2019 IEEE