Ti₃AlC₂ MAX phase thin film as saturable absorber for generating soliton mode-locked fiber laser

We have successfully realized the soliton pulse in a Erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) cavity, which was mode-locked by a Titanium Aluminum Carbide (Ti₃AlC₂) MAX phase based saturable absorber (SA). The SA was obtained by embedding the Ti₃AlC₂ compound into polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) in form of thin film. The prepared Ti₃AlC₂ film has a modulation depth of 2% and it was added into an EDFL cavity to generate a stable soliton pulse operating at 1559.7 nm wavelength. The mode-locking operation was successfully observed within a pump power range from 66.3 to 97.6 mW. It has maintained the repetition rate and pulse width at 1.8 MHz and 5.02 ps, respectively. When the pump power reached 97.6 mW, the maximum average output power, pulse energy and peak power were measured to be 8.34 mW, 4.46 nJ and 0.89 kW, respectively. These results unveil the potential of Ti₃AlC₂ MAX-phase material for implementation as practical and cost-effective SAs.