Topological Insulator Solution Filled in Photonic Crystal Fiber for Passive Mode-Locked Fiber Laser

We first reported that the topological insulator (TI) nanosheets solution filled in photonic crystal fiber can operate as an effective saturable absorber (SA) with the merits of low-insertion loss (~0.42 dB), long interaction length (>10 cm), and high-power tolerance. This SA device exhibited a saturable intensity of 14.9 MW/cm
²
, modulation depth of 19.1%, and nonsaturable loss of 25% at 1060 nm. Upo employing, this device rendered us to establish an ytterbium-doped all-fiber laser oscillator, where stable evanescent wave mode-locking operation has been achieved. This letter provided a new way of utilizing the unique nonlinear optical property of TI.