Ultrafast saturable absorption of MoS2 nanosheets under different pulse-width excitation conditions.

The newly raised two-dimensional material MoS2 is regarded as an ideal candidate for saturated absorbers. Here, the open-aperture Z-scan method is used to study the saturation absorption (SA) response of monolayer and multilayer MoS2, considering laser irradiation with different pulse widths. Specifically, in cases of 10 ns and 10 ps laser pulses, the accumulative nonlinearity [e.g., free carrier absorption (FCA)] coupled with SA is found in both monolayer and multilayer MoS2. However, under a 65 fs pulse laser, the instantaneous nonlinearity [e.g., two-photon absorption (TPA)] and the SA effect turn to play a significant role. Additionally, the saturation of both TPA and FCA is observed in MoS2. Importantly, the modulation depth of MoS2 shows different change trends by adjusting the laser pulse width.