Multilayered graphene efficiently formed by mechanical exfoliation for nonlinear saturable absorbers in fiber mode-locked lasers

An efficiently prepared graphene from a bulk graphite using mechanical exfoliation is experimentally investigated for the first practical application to ultrafast photonics. Overcoming the limitations of the method in its size and atomic layer control, the multilayered graphene guarantees a nonlinear intensity modulation. After confirming its excellent crystal quality and few-layered nanostructure employing Raman analysis and atomic force microscopy the graphene layer is introduced into a fiber laser as an intracavity saturable absorber to realize the passive mode-locking that produces picosecond pulses at the repetition rate of 10.9 MHz. Extinction ratio of the resultant pulsed output is higher than 40 dB.