A graphene-based passively<i>Q</i>-switched Ho:YAG laser in-band pumped by a diode-pumped Tm:YLF solid-state laser

Abstract

We report the first demonstration of a Ho:YAG (yttrium aluminum garnet) solid-state laser passively Q-switched via a graphene saturable absorber. The Ho:YAG laser was in-band pumped by a continuous wave diode-pumped Tm:YLF (yttrium lithium fluoride) laser. Double-layer graphene grown by chemical vapor deposition and transferred onto a thin quartz plate was fabricated as the saturable absorber. We observed basically stable Q-switched laser pulses at the center wavelength of 2096.5 nm with the shortest pulse width of 632 ns, a repetition rate of 43 kHz, and the single-pulse energy of 13.3 μJ. Our results illustrate that graphene can be used well as a saturable absorber in a Ho-doped solid-state laser at 2 μm wavelength.