Q-switched Nd:YVO4 laser operating at 1064 nm with NiPS3 nanoflakes onto a silica metasurface as saturable absorbers

Abstract

In this work, we show that a metasurface can be used to improve the performance of the two-dimensional (2D) material saturable absorber in a Nd:YVO4 solid-state laser. To our knowledge, the hybrid saturable absorber was fabricated by spraying the NiPS3 nanoflakes onto a silica metasurface for the first time. It is shown that the optical absorption, modulation depth, saturation intensity, and ultrafast recovery time of the metasurface-NiPS3 saturable absorber exhibit better performance than the 2D material control device. In a proof-of-concept experiment, the Q-switched pulses with a pulse duration of 20.5 ns, repetition rate of 4.35 MHz, output power of 2.3 W, peak power of 30.61 W, and pulse energy of 0.63 μJ were experimentally demonstrated. These findings suggest that a hybrid saturable absorber is a promising candidate for developing pulsed laser and optical modulators.