Passively Q-Switched Yb:Lu0.74Y0.23La0.01VO4 Laser Based on MoTe2 Saturable Absorber

A passively-Q-switched Yb:Lu_{1-<italic>x-y</italic>}Y_{<italic>x</italic>}La_{<italic>y</italic>}VO₄ laser based on a two-dimension (2D) molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe₂) saturable absorber (SA) is reported for the first time to the best of our knowledge. High quality few layered 2D MoTe₂ nanosheets were fabricated by liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) method and used as the SA, whose saturable absorption properties around <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1.0~\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> were characterized with a saturation fluence of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$3.02~\mu \text{J}/$ </tex-math></inline-formula>cm² and a modulation depth of 8.3%. In the passively Q-switched laser operation, the shortest pulse width of 500 ns was obtained with an average output power of 0.33 W at a pulse repetition rate of 117 kHz, corresponding to the maximum single pulse energy of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2.8~\mu \text{J}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and the peak power of 5.6 W.