Abstract

Stimulated by the tremendous impact it had on the development of reliable and practical ultrafast fibre lasers operating at 1-μm and 1.55-μm wavelengths, the semiconductor saturable absorber technology is evolving continuously to extend its benefits to new types of fibre lasers and gain media [1,2]. In particular, expansion towards new wavelength domains, such as 2-μm, calls for the development of novel semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs) based on material systems not yet explored for ultrafast laser applications. Other refinements of the SESAM technology are related to parameter optimization for Q-switching operation; recent advances pertinent to Q-switched fibre lasers incorporating highly nonlinear SESAMs resulted in a considerable reduction of the pulse duration from hundreds of nanoseconds to only a few nanoseconds [3,4].

© 2009 IEEE