Broadband tuning in a passively Q-switched erbium doped fiber laser (EDFL) via multiwall carbon nanotubes/polyvinyl alcohol (MWCNT/PVA) saturable absorber

• Main Authors: Ahmad, H., Hassan, S. N. M., Ahmad, F., Zulkifli, M. Z., Harun, S. W.
• Format: Article
• Published: Elsevier 2016
• Subjects: TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/71627/; https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84949514283&doi=10.1016%2fj.optcom.2015.12.004&partnerID=40&md5=66782b46c6e977996a3a39224d86120b
• Institution: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

An MWCNT/PVA-based Q-switched erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) that uses a tunable bandpass filter (TBPF) as the wavelength tuning and filtering mechanism to achieve a broadband tuning range is proposed and demonstrated. The tuning range of the generated Q-switched pulses covered a wide wavelength range of 50 nm, which spanned from 1519 nm to 1569 nm and corresponded to the S- and C-band regions. In addition, the lasing and Q-switching operations had low thresholds of 8.9 mW and 22.4 mW respectively. The highest pulse energy of 52.13 nJ was obtained at an output wavelength of 1569 nm, with a corresponding repetition rate of 26.53 kHz and pulse width of 6.10 μs, at the maximum power of 114.8 mW.