212-kHz-linewidth, transform-limited pulses from a single-frequency Q-switched fiber laser based on a few-layer Bi2Se3saturable absorber

Conventional Q-switched fiber lasers operating at multi-longitudinal-mode oscillation usually suffer from self-mode-locking-induced temporal instability, relatively strong noise, and low coherence. Here, we address the challenge through demonstrating, for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, a single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) Er-doped fiber (EDF) laser passively Q-switched by a few-layer Bi2Se3 saturable absorber (SA). The Bi2Se3 SA prepared by the liquid-phase exfoliation method shows a modulation depth of ∼5% and saturation optical intensity of 1.8 MW/cm2. A section of 1-m unpumped EDF together with a 0.06-nm-bandwidth fiber Bragg grating is used as an ultra-narrow autotracking filter to realize SLM oscillation. Stable SLM Q-switching operation at 1.55 μm is successfully achieved with the spectral linewidth as narrow as 212 kHz and the pulse duration of 2.54 μs, manifesting near-transform-limited pulses with a time-bandwidth product of 0.53. In particular, we found that the SLM Q-switching possesses the higher signal-to-noise ratios of 62 dB (optical) and 48 dB (radio frequency), exhibiting its advantages of low noise and high stability. Such an SLM Q-switched fiber laser could gain great interest for some applications in coherent detection, coherent optical communications, and high-sensitivity optical sensing.