Ultrafast fiber laser at 1570 nm based on organic material as saturable absorber

In this work, we demonstrated Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS) as a saturable absorber (SA) to produce mode-locking operation in different length of Erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL). The PEDOT: PSS was embedded into polyvinyl alcohol to form a thin film that acts as an absorber into the laser setup. The three different mode-locked EDFL were successfully demonstrated with different cavity length and output coupler ratio. The pulse repetition rate/width of 3.417 MHz/710 fs, 4.831 MHz/510 fs, and 6.049 MHz/460 fs were obtained by utilizing optical coupler/ cavity length of 20:80/60.7 m, 10:90/42.7 m, and 5:95/33.7 m, respectively. All experiments generated a stable and mode-locked operation at a central wavelength of 1570.76 nm, 1570.3 nm, and 1569.95 nm with 3 dB bandwidth of 4.8 nm, 5.6 nm, and 6.5 nm, respectively. The long-time stability of the ultrafast fiber lasers was investigated for each setup via 120 min. The proposed PEDOT: PSS has proven as a promising material to induce mode-locking operation in different fiber laser setup.