In this paper, both nonlinear saturable absorption and two-photon absorption (TPA) of few-layer molybdenum diselenide (MoSe2) were observed at 1.56 μm wavelength and further applied to mode-locked ultrafast fiber laser for the first time to our knowledge. Few-layer MoSe2 nanosheets were prepared by liquid-phase exfoliation method and characterized by x ray diffractometer, Raman spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy. The obtained few-layer MoSe2 dispersion is further composited with a polymer material for convenient fabrication of MoSe2 thin films. Then, we investigated the nonlinear optical (NLO) absorption property of the few-layer MoSe2 film using a balanced twin-detector measurement technique. Both the saturable absorption and TPA effects of the few-layer MoSe2 film were found by increasing the input optical intensity. The saturable absorption shows a modulation depth of 0.63% and a low nonsaturable loss of ～3.5%, corresponding to the relative modulation depth of 18%. The TPA effect occurred when the input optical intensity exceeds ～260 MW/cm2. Furthermore, we experimentally exploit the saturable absorption of few-layer MoSe2 film to mode lock an all-fiber erbium-doped fiber laser. Stable soliton mode locking at 1558 nm center wavelength is achieved with pulse duration of 1.45 ps. It was also observed that the TPA process suppresses the mode-locking operation in the case of higher optical intensity. Our results indicate that layered MoSe2, as another two-dimensional nanomaterial, can provide excellent NLO properties (e.g., saturable absorption and TPA) for potential applications in ultrashort pulse generation and optical limiting.

We report a simple solution-processed method for the fabrication of low-cost, flexible optical limiting materials based on graphene oxide (GO) impregnated polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) sheets. Such GO–PVA composite sheets display highly efficient broadband optical limiting activities for femtosecond laser pulses at 400, 800, and 1400 nm with very low limiting thresholds. Femtosecond pump–probe measurement results revealed that nonlinear absorption played an important role for the observed optical limiting activities. High flexibility and efficient optical limiting activities of these materials allow these composite sheets to be attached to nonplanar optical sensors in order to protect them from light-induced damage.

We report an erbium-doped fiber laser passively Q-switched by a few-layer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) saturable absorber (SA). The few-layer MoS2 is grown by the chemical vapor deposition method and transferred onto the end-face of a fiber connector to form a fiber-compatible MoS2 SA. The laser cavity is constructed by using a three-port optical circulator and a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) as the two end-mirrors. Stable Q-switched pulses are obtained with a pulse duration of 1.92 μs at 1560.5 nm. By increasing the pump power from 42 to 204 mW, the pulse repetition rate can be widely changed from 28.6 to 114.8 kHz. Passive Q-switching operations with discrete lasing wavelengths ranging from 1529.8 to 1570.1 nm are also investigated by using FBGs with different central wavelengths. This work demonstrates that few-layer MoS2 can serve as a promising SA for wideband-tunable Q-switching laser operation.

In this paper, we reported a multiwavelength passively Q-switched Yb3+:GdAl3(BO3)4 solid-state laser with topological insulator Bi2Te3 as a saturable absorber (SA) for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. Bi2Te3 nanosheets were prepared by the facile solvothermal method. The influence of three Bi2Te3 densities on the laser operation was compared. The maximum average output power was up to 57 mW with a pulse energy of 511.7 nJ. The shortest pulsewidth was measured to be 370 ns with 110 kHz pulse repetition rate and 40 mW average power. The laser operated at three wavelengths simultaneously at 1043.7, 1045.3, and 1046.2 nm, of which the frequency differences were within the terahertz wave band. Our work suggests that solvothermal synthesized Bi2Te3 is a promising SA for simultaneously multiwavelength laser operation.

Deposition of two-dimensional (2D) MoS2 materials on the tapered fiber allows various photonic applications including saturable absorbers and four-wave mixing. Ethanol catalytic deposition (ECD) of MoS2 on the optical tapered fiber was proposed and demonstrated in this work. Different from the conventional optical driven deposition using water or organic solvent, the ECD method utilized the high volatility of the ethanol solvent, which significantly increased the movement speed of the MoS2 nanosheets and thus boosted the deposition rate and reduced the minimum power threshold to drive the deposition. We believe the ECD method should be able to be applied to other similar 2D materials such as other types of transition metal chalcogenides.

We report on the high-power amplification of a 1064 nm linearly polarized laser in an all-fiber polarization-maintained master oscillator power amplifier, which can operate at an output power level of 1.3 kW. The beam quality (M2) was measured to be <1.2 at full power operation. The polarization extinction rate of the fiber amplifier was measured to be above 94% before mode instabilities (MIs) set in, which reduced to about 90% after the onset of MI. The power scaling capability of strategies for suppressing MI is analyzed based on a semianalytical model, the theoretical results of which agree with the experimental results. It shows that mitigating MI by coiling the gain fiber is an effective and practical method in standard double-cladding large mode area fiber, and, by tight coiling of the gain fiber to the radius of 5.5 cm, the MI threshold can be increased to three times higher than that without coiling or loose coiling. Experimental studies have been carried out to verify the idea, which has proved that MI was suppressed successfully in the amplifier by proper coiling.

An ultrathin, planar, broadband metalens composed of metal rectangular split-ring resonators (MRSRRs) has been designed, which shows dual-polarity characteristics for different types of circularly polarized (CP) light incidence. The designed metalens can be considered as the focusing lens and the diverging lens under left-handed CP and right-handed CP light incidence, respectively. The phase discontinuity of the cross-polarized transmission light is produced by optical-axis rotation through modulating two arms’ lengths of the MRSRR. The MRSRR metalens possesses a wavelength-controllable focal length and a relatively larger chromatic aberration compared with the conventional lenses. And the focal length changes from 9 to 7 μm with incident wavelength from 740 to 950 nm. The dual-polarity flat metalens opens a door for new applications of phase discontinuity devices, and it will promote the fabricating capability of on-chip or fiber-embedded optical devices.

We reported diverse soliton operations in a thulium/holmium-doped fiber laser by taking advantage of a tapered fiber-based topological insulator (TI) Bi2Te3 saturable absorber (SA). The SA had a nonsaturable loss of ～53.5% and a modulation depth of 9.8%. Stable fundamentally mode-locked solitons at 1909.5 nm with distinct Kelly sidebands on the output spectrum, a pulse repetition rate of 21.5 MHz, and a measured pulse width of 1.26 ps were observed in the work. By increasing the pump power, both bunched solitons with soliton number up to 15 and harmonically mode-locked solitons with harmonic order up to 10 were obtained. To our knowledge, this is the first report of both bunched solitons and harmonically mode-locked solitons in a fiber laser at 2 μm region incorporated with TIs.

We reported on the generation of the dual-wavelength rectangular pulse in an erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) with a topological insulator saturable absorber. The rectangular pulse could be stably initiated with pulse width from 13.62 to 25.16 ns and fundamental repetition rate of 3.54 MHz by properly adjusting the pump power and the polarization state. In addition, we verified that the pulse shape of the dual-wavelength rectangular pulse can be affected by the total net cavity dispersion in the fiber laser. Furthermore, by properly rotating the polarization controllers, the harmonic mode-locking operation of the dual-wavelength rectangular pulse was also obtained. The dual-wavelength rectangular pulse EDFL would benefit some potential applications, such as spectroscopy, biomedicine, and sensing research.

A novel method for converting an array of out-of-phase lasers into one of in-phase lasers that can be tightly focused is presented. The method exploits second-harmonic generation and can be adapted for different laser arrays geometries. Experimental and calculated results, presented for negatively coupled lasers formed in a square, honeycomb, and triangular geometries are in good agreement.

In underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC), a channel is characterized by abundant scattering/absorption effects and optical turbulence. Most previous studies on UOWC have been limited to scattering/absorption effects. However, experiments in the literature indicate that underwater optical turbulence (UOT) can cause severe degradation of UOWC performance. In this paper, we characterize an UOWC channel with both scattering/absorption and UOT taken into consideration, and a spatial diversity receiver scheme, say a single-input–multiple-output (SIMO) scheme, based on a light-emitting-diode (LED) source and multiple detectors is proposed to mitigate deep fading. The Monte Carlo based statistical simulation method is introduced to evaluate the bit-error-rate performance of the system. It is shown that spatial diversity can effectively reduce channel fading and remarkably extend communication range.

A tunable plasmonic perfect absorber with a tuning range of ～650 nm is realized by introducing a 20 nm thick phase-change material Ge2Sb2Te5 layer into the metal–dielectric–metal configuration. The absorption at the plasmonic resonance is kept above 0.96 across the whole tuning range. In this work we study this extraordinary optical response numerically and reveal the geometric conditions which support this phenomenon. This work shows a promising route to achieve tunable plasmonic devices for multi-band optical modulation, communication, and thermal imaging.

Quantum beats can be produced in fourth-order interference such as in a Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) interferometer by using photons with different frequencies. Here we present theoretically the appearance of interference of quantum beats when the HOM interferometer is combined with a Franson-type interferometer. This combination can make the interference effect of photons with different colors take place not only within the coherence time of downconverted fields but also in the region beyond that. We expect that it can provide a new method in quantum metrology, as it can realize the measurement of time intervals in three scales.

Planar ring resonator waveguides are fabricated in thin films of As2S3 chalcogenide glass, deposited on silica-on-silicon substrates. Waveguide cores are directly written by scanning the focused illumination of a femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser at a central wavelength of 810 nm, through a two-photon photo-darkening process. A large photo-induced index change of 0.3–0.4 refractive index units is obtained. The radius of the ring resonator is 1.9 mm, corresponding to a transmission free spectral range of 9.1 GHz. A high loaded (intrinsic) Q value of 110,000 (180,000) is achieved. The thermal dependence of the resonator transfer function is characterized. The results provide the first report, to the best of our knowledge, of directly written high-Q ring resonators in chalcogenide glass films, and demonstrate the potential of this simple technique towards the fabrication of planar lightguide circuits in these materials.

We demonstrate binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation using a silicon Mach–Zehnder modulator with a π-phase-shift voltage (Vπ) of 4.5 V. The single-drive push–pull traveling wave electrode has been optimized using numerical simulations with a 3 dB electro-optic bandwidth of 35 GHz. The 32 Gb/s BPSK constellation diagram is measured with an error vector magnitude of 18.9%.