Q-switched and mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser based on graphene saturable absorber

A compact passively Q-switched and mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser based on graphene saturable absorber was reported in this paper. A fiber ferrule, which had graphene deposited on the core region, was used as the saturable absorber. The Q-switched operation was initiated with a low pump threshold of about 50 mW at 974 nm and the repetition rate can be widely tuned from 14 kHz to 70 kHz along with the increase of the pump power. Moreover, the mode-locking state working at 1559.7 nm with a 0.4nm spectral bandwidth and about 3 ns pulse duration was also demonstrated in the same ring cavity when the pump power increased to about 150 mW. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first report of the fiber laser, which had the both Q-switched operation with so wide repetition rate and mode-locking operation in the same ring cavity based on the same graphene saturable absorber.

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