Gold-Nanoparticles Microfiber Saturable Absorber for Mode-Locked Erbium-doped Fiber Laser

We demonstrate the generation of 743 fs soliton pulses in erbium-doped fiber laser employing gold-nanoparticles saturable absorber. The mode-locking operation is achieved with gold-nanoparticles/polydimethyl-siloxane composite coated on a microfiber with
$\displaystyle \mathbf{10\ \mu m}$
. waist diameter, indicating the availability of fabricated saturable absorber for pulsed operation in
$\displaystyle \mathbf{1.55\ \mu m}$
spectral range.