Q-switched fiber laser operating at 1560 nm modulated by Cr3C2 film

Chromium carbide (Cr3C2), as a kind of transition metal carbides, has exhibited extraordinary optoelectronic properties and aroused enormous attention. However, few reports have been focused on the nonlinear properties and relevant devices. In this study, we first demonstrated a novel Cr3C2 saturable absorber (SA). Cr3C2 with an average size of 200 nm was prepared through a low temperature salt flux synthetic method. The Cr3C2-film SA exhibited high robustness and strong linear and nonlinear saturable absorption response at 1560 nm. As the Cr3C2 SA was inserted into the Er3+-doped fiber laser cavity, Q-switched pulses were generated with a central wavelength of 1560 nm. To the best of our knowledge, this was the first report on the optical nonlinearity of Cr3C2 as a Q-switcher for the near-infrared fiber laser. Our experimental results verified that the integrated Cr3C2-based device possessed great potential as a nonlinear optical medium for high-performance optical applications.