Fabrication and characterization of double-wall carbon nanotube absorber for passive mode-locked Nd:GdVO4 laser

Abstract

Using the vertical evaporation technique we fabricated saturable absorbers by transferring the double-wall carbon nanotubes (DWCNT) onto a hydrophilic quartz substrate. The fast recovery time and the saturation intensity of the absorber were measured to be 228 fs and 130 mu J/cm(2), respectively, at 1060 nm. The modulation depth of the absorber was about 3.7%. Passive mode-locked Nd:GdVO4 laser was demonstrated. The continuous wave mode-locked pulses pulse duration is 5.6 ps and the largest average output power is 1.2 W at the pump power of 9.5 W. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of high power continuous wave mode locking laser with DWCNT absorber.