Graphdiyne Saturable Absorber for Passively Q-Switched Ho3+-Doped Laser.

High-quality all-carbon nanostructure graphdiyne (GDY) saturable absorber was successfully fabricated and saturable absorption properties in the 2 μm region were characterized using a commercial mode-locked laser as a pulsed source. The fabricated GDY was first used as an optical switcher in a passively Q-switched Ho laser. Under absorbed pump power of 2.4 W, the maximum average output power and shortest pulse width were 443 mW and 1.38 µs, at a repetition rate of 29.72 kHz. The results suggest that GDY nanomaterial is a promising candidate as an optical modulator for generation of short pulses in Ho-doped lasers at 2.1 μm.