Broadband 1T-titanium selenide-based saturable absorbers for solid-state bulk lasers

• Published in: Nanoscale 2018-11, Vol.1 (43), p.2171-2177
• Main Authors: Yan, Bingzheng, Zhang, Baitao, Nie, Hongkun, Li, Guoru, Sun, Xiaoli, Wang, Yiran, Liu, Junting, Shi, Bingnan, Liu, Shande, He, Jingliang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Absorbers; Broadband; Lasers; Liquid phases; Multilayers; Phase transitions; Photoelectricity; Pulsed lasers; Solid state lasers; Spin coating; Titanium; Transition metal compounds; Ultrafast lasers
• ISSN: 2040-3364; 2040-3372
• DOI: 10.1039/c8nr03859g

1T-titanium selenide (1T-TiSe 2 ), a representative of 1T phase transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), exhibits semimetallic behaviour with a nearly zero bandgap structure, which makes it a promising photoelectric material. A high-quality multilayer 1T-TiSe 2 saturable absorber (SA) is successfully fabricated by a combination of liquid phase exfoliation and the spin coating method. The broadband nonlinear saturable absorption properties of the prepared 1T-TiSe 2 SA are investigated by using the open aperture (OA) Z -scan method. Passively Q-switched (PQS) all-solid-state lasers with different bulk crystals at the wavelengths of 1.0, 1.3, 2.0 and 2.8 μm are realised based on the 1T-TiSe 2 SA. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first presentation of the application of a 1T-TiSe 2 material to all-solid-state bulk lasers. The results indicate that 1T-TiSe 2 could be an alternative broadband SA for solid-state pulsed lasers and exhibits promising potential applications in mode-locked ultrafast lasers. 1T-titanium selenide (1T-TiSe 2 ), a representative of 1T phase transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), exhibits semimetallic behaviour with a nearly zero bandgap structure, which makes it a promising photoelectric material.