Graphene Saturable Absorber Mirrors for 2-3 μm Lasers

Abstract

This thesis is devoted to the development of graphene saturable absorber mirrors for ultrafast applications in the mid-infrared. It covers from the fabrication of the graphene saturable absorber mirrors via graphene transfer process to the implementation of the saturable absorbers in different types of laser cavities and characterisations of their performances. The pump-probe technique is employed to obtain the recovery times of single- and double-layer graphene on different optical substrates. To understand the underlying physics of graphene s saturable absorption properties, measurements of its fast and slow relaxation times are important, especially in the mid-infrared range where there is a smaller choice of effective saturable absorbers for such wavelength range.