High-Peak Power Passively Q-Switched 2-μm Laser With MoS2 Saturable Absorber

The passive Q-switching characteristics of a diode-pumped Tm,Ho:YAP laser at 2 μm based on a MoS₂ saturable absorber (SA) is presented for the first time. Pulses as short as 435 ns under a repetition rate of about 55 kHz were generated at the incident pump power of 8.4 W, corresponding to the pulse peak power up to 11.3 W. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the highest pulse peak power, ever obtained from MoS₂ based passively Q-switched 2-μm lasers. The experimental results sufficiently validated the feasibility of MoS ₂ as SA for solid-state 2-μm lasers.