Robust mode-locking in all-fiber ultrafast laser by nanocavity of two-dimensional heterostructure

Jiahui Shao; Guangjie Yao; Xuecheng Wu; Kaifeng Lin; Shaoyi Zhang; Xu Cheng; Ding Zhong; Chang Liu; Can Liu; Fengqiu Wang; Kaihui Liu; Hao Hong

doi:10.1038/s41377-025-02018-2

Your Location：

Home >

Browse articles >

Robust mode-locking in all-fiber ultrafast laser by nanocavity of two-dimensional heterostructure

Original Articles

- Robust mode-locking in all-fiber ultrafast laser by nanocavity of two-dimensional heterostructure
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 14, Issue 10, Pages: 3195-3202(2025)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.State Key Lab for Mesoscopic Physics and Frontiers Science Center for Nanooptoelectronics, School of Physics, Peking University, 100871 Beijing, China
  2.Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, 100871 Beijing, China
  3.School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, 210023 Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
  4.Group for Fibre Optics, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
  5.Key Laboratory of Quantum State Construction and Manipulation (Ministry of Education), School of Physics, Renmin University of China, 100872 Beijing, China
  6.International Centre for Quantum Materials, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Quantum Matter, Peking University, 100871 Beijing, China
  7.Songshan Lake Materials Lab, 523808 Dongguan, Guangdong, China
  8.Interdisciplinary Institute of Light-Element Quantum Materials and Research Centre for Light-Element Advanced Materials, Peking University, 100871 Beijing, China
- Author bio：
  
  Fengqiu Wang (fwang@nju.edu.cn)
  Kaihui Liu (khliu@pku.edu.cn)
  Hao Hong (haohong@pku.edu.cn)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-025-02018-2
  CLC：
- Received：25 March 2025，
  
  Revised：2025-08-11，
  
  Accepted：19 August 2025，
  
  Published Online：03 September 2025，
  
  Published：31 October 2025
- Accepted：
Scan QR Code
Shao, J. H. et al. Robust mode-locking in all-fiber ultrafast laser by nanocavity of two-dimensional heterostructure. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 3195-3202 (2025).
DOI：

Shao, J. H. et al. Robust mode-locking in all-fiber ultrafast laser by nanocavity of two-dimensional heterostructure. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 3195-3202 (2025). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-02018-2.

摘要

Abstract

The fiber-based saturable absorber (SA) that enables mode-locking within a ring cavity serves as the core component of the ultrafast all-fiber lasers. However

the integration of SAs onto fibers with high compactness suffers from imbalanced saturable absorption properties and unstable mode-locking performance. Here

we present a robust mode-locking SA by integrating a nanocavity composed of a two-dimensional graphene heterostructure on the fiber end facet. We demonstrate a significant reduction in the saturation intensity (~65%) and improved soliton dynamic processes through precise modulation of the optical field within the heterostructure. The designed heterostructure facilitates the formation of a stable single-soliton state for robust mode-locking. A high tolerance to intracavity polarization variations is achieved in the heterostructure-SA (~85% compared to 20% for bare graphene). Our designed heterostructure-SA represents an important advancement in the development of ultracompact mode-locked all-fiber lasers

offering enhanced integrability and stability.

关键词

Keywords

references

Liang, C. et al. U ltra stable all-fiber telecom-band entangled photon-pair source for turnkey quantum communication applications. Opt. Express 14 , 6936–6941 (2006)..

Fermann, M. E. & Hartl, I. Ultrafast fibre lasers. Nat. Photonics 7 , 868–874 (2013)..

Haus, H. A. Mode-locking of lasers. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron . 6 , 1173–1185 (2000)..

Keller, U. Recent developments in compact ultrafast lasers. Nature 424 , 831–838 (2003)..

Han, Y. et al. Generation, optimization, and application of ultrashort femtosecond pulse in mode-locked fiber lasers. Prog. Quantum Electron . 71 , 100264 (2020)..

Sarukura, N. et al. cw passive mode locking of a Ti: sapphire laser. Appl. Phys. Lett . 56 , 814–815 (1990)..

Snitzer, E. & Woodcock, R. 9C8 - saturable absorption of color centers in Nd 3+ and Nd 3+ -Yb 3+ laser glass. IEEE J. Quantum Electron . 2 , 627–632 (1966)..

Zolotovskaya, S. A. et al. Nd: KGd(WO 4 ) 2 laser at 1.35μm passively Q-switched with V 3+ : YAG crystal and PbS-doped glass. Opt. Mater . 28 , 919–924 (2006)..

Alcock, A. J. & Walker, A. C. Generation and detection of 150-psec mode-locked pulses from a multi-atmosphere CO 2 laser. Appl. Phys. Lett . 25 , 299–301 (1974)..

Haiml, M., Grange, R. & Keller, U. Optical characterization of semiconductor saturable absorbers. Appl. Phys. B 79 , 331–339 (2004)..

Ortaç, B. et al. Passively mode-locked single-polarization microstructure fiber laser. Opt. Express 16 , 2122–2128 (2008)..

Wang, F. et al. Wideband-tuneable, nanotube mode-locked, fibre laser. Nat. Nanotechnol . 3 , 738–742 (2008)..

Martinez, A. & Sun, Z. P. Nanotube and graphene saturable absorbers for fibre lasers. Nat. Photonics 7 , 842–845 (2013)..

Yu, S. L. et al. 2D materials for optical modulation: challenges and opportunities. Adv. Mater . 29 , 1606128 (2017)..

Du, J. et al. Phosphorene quantum dot saturable absorbers for ultrafast fiber lasers. Sci. Rep . 7 , 42357 (2017)..

Bonaccorso, F. et al. Graphene photonics and optoelectronics. Nat. Photonics 4 , 611–622 (2010)..

Martinez, A. & Yamashita, S. 10 GHz fundamental mode fiber laser using a graphene saturable absorber. Appl. Phys. Lett . 101 , 041118 (2012)..

Brida, D. et al. Ultrafast collinear scattering and carrier multiplication in graphene. Nat. Commun . 4 , 1987 (2013)..

Sotor, J. et al. Sub-90 fs a stretched-pulse mode-locked fiber laser based on a graphene saturable absorber. Opt. Express 23 , 27503–27508 (2015)..

Bao, Q. L. et al. Atomic-layer graphene as a saturable absorber for ultrafast pulsed lasers. Adv. Funct. Mater . 19 , 3077–3083 (2009)..

Song, Y. W. et al. Graphene mode-lockers for fiber lasers functioned with evanescent field interaction. Appl. Phys. Lett . 96 , 051122 (2010)..

Sun, Z. P. et al. Graphene mode-locked ultrafast laser. ACS Nano 4 , 803–810 (2010)..

Chen, J. H. et al. Silica optical fiber integrated with two-dimensional materials: towards opto-electro-mechanical technology. Light Sci. Appl . 10 , 78 (2021)..

Cheng, Y. et al. Controllable growth of graphene photonic crystal fibers with tunable optical nonlinearity. ACS Photonics 9 , 961–968 (2022)..

Li, X. et al. Saturable absorber based on graphene for a hybrid passive mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser. Opt. Fiber Technol . 70 , 102867 (2022)..

Sun, X. L. et al. Tunable ultrafast nonlinear optical properties of graphene/MoS 2 van der Waals heterostructures and their application in solid-state bulk lasers. ACS Nano 12 , 11376–11385 (2018)..

Lee, E. J. et al. Active control of all-fibre graphene devices with electrical gating. Nat. Commun . 6 , 6851 (2015)..

Zaugg, C. A. et al. Ultrafast and widely tuneable vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser, mode-locked by a graphene-integrated distributed Bragg reflector. Opt. Express 21 , 31548 (2013)..

Sotor, J. et al. Fundamental and harmonic mode-locking in erbium-doped fiber laser based on graphene saturable absorber. Opt. Commun . 285 , 3174–3178 (2012)..

Han, M. M. et al. Polarization dynamic patterns of vector solitons in a graphene mode-locked fiber laser. Opt. Express 23 , 2424–2435 (2015)..

Grudinin, A. B. & Gray, S. Passive harmonic mode locking in soliton fiber lasers. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 14 , 144–154 (1997)..

Herink, G. et al. Real-time spectral interferometry probes the internal dynamics of femtosecond soliton molecules. Science 356 , 50–54 (2017)..

Liu, X. M., Yao, X. K. & Cui, Y. D. Real-time observation of the buildup of soliton molecules. Phys. Rev. Lett . 121 , 023905 (2018)..

Liu, X. M. & Cui, Y. D. Revealing the behavior of soliton buildup in a mode-locked laser. Adv. Photonics 1 , 016003 (2019)..

Ryczkowski, P. et al. Real-time full-field characterization of transient dissipative soliton dynamics in a mode-locked laser. Nat. Photonics 12 , 221–227(2018)..

Liu, X. M., Popa, D. & Akhmediev, N. Revealing the transition dynamics from Q switching to mode locking in a soliton laser. Phys. Rev. Lett . 123 , 093901 (2019)..

Ippen, E. P. Principles of passive mode locking. Appl. Phys. B 58 , 159–170 (1994)..

Chen, T. H. et al. Incorporating MoS 2 saturable absorption with nonlinear polarization rotation for stabilized mode-locking fibre lasers. Laser Phys. Lett . 15 , 075102 (2018)..

Kurtner, F. X., Der Au, J. A. & Keller, U. Mode-locking with slow and fast saturable absorbers-what's the difference?. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron . 4 , 159–168 (1998)..

Zhang, H. et al. Compact graphene mode-locked wavelength-tunable erbium-doped fiber lasers: from all anomalous dispersion to all normal dispersion. Laser Phys. Lett . 7 , 591–596 (2010)..

Views

Downloads

CSCD

Alert me when the article has been cited

Submit

Tools

Publicity Resources

No data

Related Author

No data

Related Institution

No data

⁰