High-power passively Q-switched 2.0 μm all-solid-state laser based on a MoTe2 saturable absorber.

In this article, a high-power diode-end-pumped passively Q-switched (PQS) Tm:YAP laser is reported with novel two-dimension (2D) molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2) as a saturable absorber (SA). By using the open-aperture Z-scan method, the saturable absorption properties around 2.0 μm was characterized with a saturable fluence of 2.26 μJ∕cm2 and a modulation depth of 6.0% for the as-prepared MoTe2 SA. The band structure of MoTe2 with the introduction of Te vacancies is simulated by the DFT method, and the results indicate that the bandgap can be reduced with the vacancies in a suitable range. The shortest pulse width of 380 ns was obtained with an average output power of 1.21 W at a repetition rate of 144 kHz, corresponding to a maximum single pulse energy of 8.4 µJ and peak power of 22.2 W. It is the first presentation of MoTe2 as the saturable absorber in 2.0 μm solid-state pulse laser generation and the pulse width is the shortest among 2.0 μm solid-state lasers passive Q-switched with transitional metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) SAs to the best of our knowledge. The results indicated that MoTe2 should be an excellent optical modulator for high repetition rate and short pulsed laser generation in a broadband spectral range.