Ytterbium-doped Q-switched fiber laser based upon manganese dioxide (MnO2) saturable absorber

摘要

Manganese dioxide (MnO2) is an abundant material that is widely used in many devices, such as alkaline batteries. At infrared frequencies, MnO2 is lossy and strongly absorbs light. These characteristics make MnO2 a potential candidate as a low-cost saturable absorber in Q-switched lasers. In this paper, we examine the performance of MnO2 as a saturable absorber in an ytterbium-doped Q-switched fiber laser: we show that it can produce pulses with durations ranging from 300 to 1800 ns. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America