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Bi 2 Te 3 based passively Q-switched at 1042.76

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Article in Laser Physics · December 2017

DOI: 10.1088/1555-6611/aa8577

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 Astro Ltd Laser Physics

Laser Phys. 27 (2017) 125102 (7pp) https://doi.org/10.1088/1555-6611/aa8577

Bi2Te3 based passively Q-switched at

1042.76 and 1047 nm wavelength
M A M Salim1,2, R A Shaharuddin1, M A Ismail1, S W Harun1, H Ahmad1
and Saaidal R Azzuhri3,4
1
  Photonics Research Centre, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2
  Laser Center, Ibnu Sina Institute for Scientific and Industrial Research, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,
Johor Bahru, Malaysia
3
  University of Malaya Power Energy Dedicated Advanced Centre (UMPEDAC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
4
  Department of Computer Systems and Technology, Faculty of Computer Science and Information
Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

E-mail: saaidal@um.edu.my

Received 21 June 2017, revised 7 August 2017

Accepted for publication 8 August 2017
Published 23 November 2017

Abstract
In this paper, we propose and demonstrate the generation of dual wavelength based photonic
crystal fiber passively Q-switched using few-layer TI:Bi2Te3 (bismuth telluride) saturable
absorbers in a 1 micron waveband. The system employs a few-layer bismuth, induced onto
a fiber ferrule using a dry oven method. A centered dual-wavelength output at 1042.76 and
1047.0 nm was produced from the Ytterbium doped fiber laser setup by incorporating 10 cm of
photonic crystal fiber and finely adjusting the polarization controller. The self-started Q-switch
had a pump power of 132.15 mW and a frequency ranging from 3.79 to 15.63 kHz. Therefore,
TI:Bi2Te3 was suitable as a potential broadband SA in a 1 micron region.

Keywords: dual-wavelength, Q-switched, bismuth telluride, 1-micron region

(Some figures may appear in colour only in the online journal)

1. Introduction such as (1) costly SESAM fabrication facilities, (2) com-

The generation and manipulation of Q-switching operations
in an ytterbium doped fiber laser (YDFL) of a 1-micron region
has attracted considerable attention due to its compactness and
flexibility. The main interest in passively Q-switched YDFLs
is due to their applications in cutting and laser marking [1],
supercontinuum generation [2, 3] and non-linear nonlinear
frequency conversion [4, 5]. Pulse lasers in the 1-micron
range are known for their low-cost deployment and flexible
designs [6, 7]. The optical material of saturable absorbers is of
great use in generating pulse modes in Q-switched and mode-
locked operations. In recent years, different type of SAs, for
exmple semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs)
[8, 9], carbon nanotubes (CNTs) [10, 11] and graphene [12,
13], have been successfully demonstrated to generate pulse
fiber lasers in a 1-micron region.
In the last decade, SESAMs have been dominant SAs for
Q-switching technology and have been widely used in com-
mercial applications. However, some disadvantages do exist,
plex packaging and fabrication and (3) having a narrowband
wavelength range [11]. As such, carbon-based nanomaterials
(i.e. CNTs and graphene) are seen as favorable SAs, replac-
ing SESAMs in Q-switching technology for their ultrafast
recovery time, plus their simple and economical fabrication.
However, the limitations of CNT lie in the complex bandgap
control, which prevents saturable absorption at certain wave-
lengths [14]. Although graphene has a wavelength-independ-
ent absorption [14], it is reported to have relatively small
optical absorption. Despite that, some reports do suggest that
it is possible to use graphene with the evanescent filed with
longer interaction lengths [15, 16]. The challenge now is to
seek a new SA, ideally with the following characteristics:
wavelength-independence, appropriate modulation depth and
low-cost fabrication.
In recent progress, the newly developed Dirac materials,
which are called topological insulators (TIs) [17–20], have
been introduced for another selection of SAs, compared to
CNTs and graphenes for Q-switching operations. The family

1555-6611/17/125102+7$33.00 1 © 2017 Astro Ltd  Printed in the UK

Laser Phys. 27 (2017) 125102
of TIs includes bismuth selenide (Bi2Se3) and bismuth tel-
luride (Bi2Te3). Several advantages of TI have been reported
in the Q-switching operation. For example, Luo et  al [21]
reported that using TI:Bi2Se3 results in broadband wavelength
absorption from ultraviolet to mid-infrared. A study conducted
by Bernard and Zhang [22] found that the nonlinear optical
response of TIs exhibits a saturable absorption at a telecom-
munication wavelength. TI:Bi2Se3 also has a large modulation
depth (it can be as high as 98%), as demonstrated by Zhou
et al [18], and for TI:Bi2Te3, the modulation depth has been
reported to be up to 95% [17]. While the TIs based saturable
absorber pulse laser has been extensively demonstrated in the
1.5 micron waveband [17–19, 22], the only available report on
the 1 µm Q-switched laser using TI:Bi2Te3 is in [23]. However,
the investigation had utilized a bulk-structure Bi2Te3 film and,
so far, no report was found on dual-wavelength Q-switching
in the 1 micron waveband. A Q-switching pulse laser involv-
ing YDFL, especially in dual-wavelength generation, attracts
a high level of interest due to its attractive function, especially
in optical sensor technologies and communication in the area
of a 1 micron waveband.
Here, we presented a few-layer TI:Bi2Te3 saturable
absorber, based on a passively Q-switched at 1042.76 and
1047 nm wavelength. The dual-wavelength Q-switch was
demonstrated by incorporating a photonic crystal fiber (PCF)
as a wavelength selective filter. The pulse repetition rates
obtained from the setup range from 3.79 to 15.63 kHz. This
indicated that the saturable absorption of TI:Bi2Te3 is working
well in generating a pulse at a 1-micron waveband.
2.  Characterization of a few-layer bismuth
telluride SA
In this experiment, we used a cryogenic grinding method to
make nano-Bi2Te3 from coarse particles. There are other meth-
ods also available, as explained in [24, 25]. Since the solving
of Bi2Te3 on a molecular level will cause it to lose its unique
electronic properties, it is advantageous to further add disper-
gation aids to stabilize such a dispersion. Thiosalicyclic acid,
such as triethanolamine salt, will help improve compatibility
to the aqueous phase. Commercially, dispergation aids used in
the coating industry can also improve the dispergability and
stability of the dispersion. In this experiment, a dispersion of
nano sized Bi2Te3 particles in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/poly-
vinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) solution was utilized. The dry oven
technique was used to drop a few-layer Bi2Te3 on top of the
fiber ferrule surface. The fiber ferrule with a drop of a few-
layer Bi2Te3 was then placed in the oven (BINDER model FD
53) and heated at 90 Celsius for 30 min, as shown in figure 1.
This process was repeated 3 times until the insertion loss was
about 8 dB. Later, fiber ferrule deposited with Bi2Te3 SA was
attached to one fiber ferrule by using an optical adaptor to
compose a Bi2Te3 optical modulator.
The experimental setup used to measure the saturable
absorption property of Bi2Te3 SA is shown in figure 2. These
measurement systems consisted of a mode-locked pulse
2
M A M Salim et al
Figure 1.  Dry oven technique with a few-layer of Bi2Te3 drop on
the surface of the fiber ferrule.
source from the erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL)) utilizing
the CNT to generate a femtosecond pulse with a repetition rate
of 27.6 MHz and a pulse duration of 0.51 ps, a 200 m length of
single mode fiber (SMF) for dispersion compensation, a vari-
able optical attenuator (VOA), a 3 dB optical coupler and two
optical power meters (OPM). The mode-locked EDFL gener-
ated by the CNT consisted of a 3 m doped fiber pumped by a
974 nm Laser Diode (Oclaro Model LC96A74P-20R) with a
launch pump power of 29 mW, through a 980/1550 nm wave-
length division multiplexing (WDM). The EDF laser output
was attached to the isolator to avoid back reflection propaga-
tion in the cavity. Then, the isolator output was channeled to
a polarization controller (PC), which controls the polarization
state in the cavity. Next the PC output was then attached to a
carbon nanotube (CNT) saturable absorber and then to a 10 dB
optical coupler, represented as OC1. The generated pulse was
amplified using the commercial Keopsys erbium-doped fiber
amplifier (EDFA) to attain a high peak power so as to effi-
ciently saturate the Bi2Te3 sample. As the mode-locked pulse
signal will eventually break after it goes through the amplifier,
the SMF was therefore used to compensate and improvise the
pulse signal. The amplification of the average output power
was tuned to ~20.0 mW by using the VOA to regulate the
output power. The output from the VOA is then joined to the
input of a 3 dB output coupler, designated as OC2 in figure 2
with one output being channeled to the first OPM, OPM1,
and another portion entering the Bi2Te3 sample then exiting
into the second OPM, OPM2. Figure 2(b) shows the saturable
absorption behavior that fits the following equation:
∆α
α =
(1) I + αlinear
(1 + Isat )
Δα, Isat, and αlinear represent the modulation depth, satu-
rable optical intensity and non-saturation loss respectively.
The measured modulation depth and saturable intensity of
Bi2Te3, as shown in figure 3, were 63% and ~4.5 MW cm−2,
respectively. Our modulation depth measurement of Bi2Te3
was found to be higher in comparison to a similar report [23],
where the modulation depth of Bi2Te3-deposited side-polished
fiber was reported to be about 2.5%. The modulation depth
could be optimized by enhancing the liquid phase exfoliation
process of Bi2Te3 [26].
Laser Phys. 27 (2017) 125102 M A M Salim et al

Figure 2.  The experimental setup nonlinear absorption measurement of Bi2Te3.

3.  Experimental setup

In this experiment, a Q-switched dual wavelength setup is

depicted in figure 4, which comprises of 70 cm of a Fibercore
DF1100 ytterbium-doped fiber with a 1300 dB m−1 peak
absorption at 977 nm, a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) and a
few-layer bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) based SA. The ytterbium-
doped fiber was forward pumped by a Oclaro LC96A74P-20R
laser diode (LD) with a 974 nm wavelength and a 600 mW
maximum pump power. The LD was coupled to the laser
cavity via a 980/1060 nm wavelength division multiplexer
(WDM). Then, a polarization insensitive isolator was incor-
porated into the laser cavity to avoid undesired backward
reflection propagation and was attached to a polarization con-
troller (PC) and then to a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based
Mach–Zehnder Interferometer (MZI), which was employed to
generate a dual-wavelength fiber laser. A compact interferom-
eter was constructed using a few-mode PCF with a 10 cm fiber
length which was spliced into two segments of SMF. The PCF
was employed to generate and stabilize the dual wavelength
spectrum, due to its nonlinearity and birefringence coefficient
[27, 28]. The PCF cross section  is depicted in the inset of
­figure 4 with a 4.37 µm diameter of solid core, a 5.06 µm diam-
eter of air holes and a 5.52 µm separation between holes. The
Fujikura 45 PM splicer was used to splice the PCF and SMF
fibers and the arrangement of the SMF-PCF-SMF was located
in a series to construct a simple Mach–Zehnder interferom-
eter. Additionally, the PCF length is dependent on the fringe
spacing. The PCF output was consequently attached to a few-
layer Bi2Te3, which functions as a SA, and it was sandwiched
between two fiber ferrules. A 10 dB combined bi-conical opti-
cal coupler (OC1) was used to tap 10% of the total power in
order to monitor the optical spectrum, power and Q-switched
pulses. A 10% output port was afterwards attached to a 3 dB
optical coupler (OC2) to enable the simultaneous monitor-
ing of pulse traces and wavelength spectrums. During this
experiment, one of the output couplers was swapped for an
OPM to measure the output power. A YOKOGAWA AQ6373
Figure 3.  The Bi2Te3 SA saturable absorption characterization.
optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) with a 0.02 nm resolution
and a fast Thorlabs D400FC photodetector was connected to
a YOKOGAWA DLM2054 digital oscilloscope to monitor
the pulse train. A 9 kHz–7.8 GHz radio frequency spectrum
analyzer (RFSA), model MS2683A, by Anritsu is utilized to
measure the pulse signal in the frequency domain.
4.  Results and discussion
In this work, the YDFL began its dual-wavelength Q-switched
mode at a 132.15 mW pump power with repetition rates of
3.79 kHz, as shown in figure 5(a). The pump power was con-
stantly increased from 132.15 mW to 138.8, 145.1 and 151.02
mW, a stable pulse train with increasing repetition rates was
observed by the oscilloscope, as depicted in figures 5(b)–(d),
respectively. The frequency was relying on the pump power,
which is a common behavior of a passively Q-switched fiber
laser. However, the pulse width decreases correspondingly
when the pump power increases and this matter is a result of
gain compression in the Q-switched operation [29].
Figure 6(a) shows the optical spectrum in a wavelength
domain (1042.76 nm and 1047.00 nm) at a pump power of
146.9 mW, obtained from the OSA, with the output power

3
Laser Phys. 27 (2017) 125102 M A M Salim et al

Figure 4.  Schematic of the bismuth telluride based Q-switched dual wavelength, incorporating photonic crystal fibers (PCF) in YDFL,
inset: PCF cross-section.

Figure 5.  The pulse train at different repetition rates of (a) 3.79 kHz, (b) 5.27 kHz, (c) 7.66 kHz and (d) 12.34 kHz by increasing the pump
power of 132.15 mW, 138.8 mW, 145.1 mW and 151.02 mW, respectively.

of  −17.88 and  −17.04 dBm respectively. The Q-switched
pulse train with a frequency of 8.81 kHz was illustrated in
figure  6(b) where the pulse width measurement is shown in
figure  6(c) and was measured to be 50.05 µs (full width at
half maximum). Figure  6(d) records the frequency domain
of the pulse train, achieved from a radio frequency spectrum
analyzer (RFSA). The spectrums verify 8.81 kHz as a funda-
mental harmonic frequency (inset of figure  6(d)) with a 38
dB peak-to-pedestal ratio. Furthermore, the wideband of the
RFSA, as shown in figure 6(d), shows no spectral modulation,
implying a steady Q-switched pulse generated in our system.
Figure 7(a) illustrated the Q-switched repetition rate and
the pulse width corresponding to the pump power. Once we
increased the pump power from 132.15 mW to 153.94 mW,
the frequency of the Q-switched pulse increased from
3.79 kHz to 15.63 kHz. However, the pulse width obviously
decreases from 96.12 µs to 38.40 µs. Therefore, by enhancing
the modulation depth of the TI:Bi2Te3 SA and shortening the

4
Laser Phys. 27 (2017) 125102 M A M Salim et al

Figure 6.  The dual wavelength Q-switched characterization at 146.9 mW with a (a) dual wavelength spectrum, (b) pulse duration, (c) pulse
width and (d) a radio frequency output spectrum.

Figure 7.  (a) The repetition rate and pulse, and, (b) the pulse energy and average output power corresponding to pump power.

cavity length [18], we could make the pulse width narrower. In
addition, as given in figure 7(b), the single-pulse energy was
increased in correspondence with the average output power.
The pulse energy and the average output power were found
to linearly increase when the input pump power increased. At
a 153.94 mW maximum pump power, the maximum average
output power was 0.06 mW, while the highest pulse energy
was 3.82 nJ, similar to reports on Q-switched pulses incor-
porating various SAs such as graphene, CNTs and SESAMs
[30–32]. The highest pulse energy can be achieved by using
a double-cladding fiber with a high-quality of TI-Bi2Te3 SA,
and optimizing the cavity design [30].
The dual-wavelength spectrum was approved for a stability
test as power stability is very significant for dual-wavelength
performances. Figures 8(a) and (b) shows the dual-wavelength
stability scan for a period of 20 min. Figure 8(a) displays a
very stable lasing wavelength over the test period, and fig-
ure 8(b) illustrates the power fluctuation during the scan, in
which the maximum fluctuation is observed to be less than
0.8 dBm. These results provide evidence that the wavelength
and average powers are constant over time and experience
only a very small power variation at room temper­ature. It
should be noted that the dual-wavelength measurements
were conducted simultaneously with the stability tests, and

5
Laser Phys. 27 (2017) 125102
Figure 8.  (a) Output scan of dual wavelength, and (b) peak power stability for 20 min with λ1  =  1042.76 nm and λ2  =  1047.00 nm.
the results confirmed the stability and consistency of our pro-
posed setup.
5. Conclusion
In summary, we have successfully achieved the dual-wave-
length based photonic crystal fiber Q-switch utilizing bismuth
telluride (Bi2Te3) SA. The few-layer Bi2Te3 was deposited on
top of a fiber ferrule surface using a dry oven method to fabricate
the bismuth telluride based SA. Dual-wavelength Q-switching
was obtained at 1042.76 and 1047 nm wavelengths, the high-
est pulse energy of 3.82 nJ and frequency ranged from 3.79 to
15.63 kHz. The generated signal indicated that TI:Bi2Te3 was
suitable to operate at a 1 µm wavelength region.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the University of Malaya for the
research funding, under grant numbers RU 0016/2014,
RP008A-13AET, RG143-12AET and BR002-2016.
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