Ruven Rhaj Naidu, Aeriyn D. Ahmad, Masruroh, Hasanain N.A. Ali, Rozalina Zakaria, Muhammad Imran M.A. Khudus, Sulaiman W. Harun
This paper investigates the use of tantalum aluminum carbide (Ta2AlC) as a passive pulse modulator for generating ultrafast mode-locked pulses in an erbium-doped fiber (EDF) laser cavity. The Ta2AlC modulator was prepared via an embedding method using polyvinyl alcohol as the host matrix, exhibiting a saturable absorption of 6.9% with a saturable intensity of 100 MW/cm2. When integrated into a long EDF laser cavity, the modulator enabled the generation of a picosecond soliton pulse train. Operating within a pump range of 95.2 to 210.62 mW, the self-starting mode-locked EDF laser achieved a central wavelength of 1561.7 nm, a repetition rate of 1.866 MHz, and a pulse width of 3.80 ps. These findings demonstrate that Ta2AlC is an effective passive modulator for ultrafast laser generation through mode locking. © 2025 Optica Publishing Group. All rights, including for text and data mining (TDM), Artificial Intelligence (AI) training, and similar technologies, are reserved.
Department of Physics, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, 50603, Malaysia; Photonics Engineering Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, 50603, Malaysia; Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, 65145, Indonesia; Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Department of Electrical ,Electronic and Systems Engineering, Malaysia
