High-power passively mode-locked Nd:GdVO4 laser using single-walled carbon nanotubes as saturable absorber

The single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have been widely investigated for making SWCNTs a promising saturable absorber for mode-locking a laser. The SWCNT-SAs have been used for mode-locking lasers operated near 1.0 and 1.5 µm. Until recently, the SWCNT-SAs have been widely used to passively mode-lock the diode-pumped solid-state lasers [1,2]. However, the output power of these lasers is still very low (less than 500 mW) due to the low heat resistance of the polymer material in the SWCNT/polymer composite film. In this paper, the SWCNT-SA film is fabricated without the polymer material by using a vertical evaporation technique [3], and then used in the passive mode-locking of Nd:GdVO
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laser at 1-µm. We obtain the highest output power to our knowledge with the new prepared SWCNT-SA film.