Graphene Thickness-Dependent Q-Switched Fiber Lasers

Graphenes of a couple of different thicknesses, both in a range of 10∼20 layers, were tested as saturable absorbers for passively Q-switched erbium-doped fiber lasers. It was observed that the thin graphene provided a Q-switched pulse output of higher peak power, shorter pulse width, and higher repetition rate than the thick graphene. The peak power of 1.24 mW and pulse energy 8.8 nJ at a repetition rate of 14.94 kHz were obtained from the Q-switched laser with the thin graphene layer.