Two-dimensional layered materials and Van der Waals heterostructures for ultrafast photonics (invited)

We report on a type of two-dimensional layered materials based Van der Waals heterostructures (VdWHs) by vertical stacking different materials in turns on the target substrate. The VdWHs are used as remarkable saturable absorbers (SAs) in experiments. Passive mode-locking and Q-switching operation could be obtained by embedding our VdWHs into an Erbium-doped fiber laser cavity. The results demonstrate that different functional devices could be engineered by using VdWHs to obtain desired properties in ultrafast photonics applications.