Dual-Wavelength Harmonically Mode-Locked Fiber Laser With Topological Insulator Saturable Absorber

Abstract

Dual-wavelength passively harmonic mode locking (HML) operation is demonstrated in an erbium-doped fiber laser with a microfiber-based topological insulator (TI) saturable absorber. It was found that the dual-wavelength pulse-trains possess different HML orders due to the different cavity nonlinear effects experienced by the two wavelengths. By properly adjusting the cavity parameters, dual-wavelength HML pulses with repetition rates of 388 and 239 MHz were achieved. Moreover, wavelength switchable operation of dual-wavelength HML pulses was also obtained. The experimental results reveal that the microfiber-based TI could indeed be employed as a high-performance dual-function photonic device with the saturable absorption and high nonlinear effects for the applications in fields of ultrafast and nonlinear photonics.