Passively Q-switched Nd:YAlO 3 nanosecond laser using MoS 2 as saturable absorber

We report on the first passively Q-switched Nd:YAlO3 laser at similar to 1079.5 nm using MoS2 as saturable absorber. The MoS2 saturable absorber is fabricated by transferring the liquid-phase-exfoliated MoS2 nanosheets onto a BK7 glass substrate. By inserting the glass MoS2 saturable absorber into a plano-concave Nd:YAlO3 laser cavity, we obtain a stable Q-switched laser operation with a maximum average output power of 0.26 W corresponding to a pulse repetition rate of 232.5 kHz, a pulse width of 227 ns and a pulse energy of about 1.11 mu J. The results experimentally confirm the promising application of the new kind of 2D material, few-layer MoS2, in solid state lasers. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America