Abstract
•In optical pulsed laser generations, focused are now largely geared towards passively mode-locked lasing in the 1.5 µm region for its high demand in telecommunication, material processing and laser surgeries applications.•As a result, passive saturable absorbers (SAs) have been extensively investigated in order to assemble an Erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) with the best mode locking performance.•We have successfully demonstrated a passively self- started and stable nanosecond mode locked EDFL using CuNWs based SA.•The output laser spectrum of nanosecond mode locked laser has a spectral bandwidth of 0.3 nm centred at 1563.3 nm with a small Kelly sidebands.•The EDFL generated soliton pulses with a fundamental repetition rate of 1.86 MHz, 124 ns of pulse width, pulse energy and average output power of 9.15 nJ and 3.41 mW, respectively, at the maximum input pump power of 187.04 mW.•The metal based nanowires showed excellent SA performance in generating nanosecond mode-locked EDF laser.
A mode-locked nanosecond Erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) based on copper nanowires (CuNWs) saturable absorber (SA) is successfully demonstrated in this article. The CuNWs were prepared by dissolving the CuNWs solution in a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) host polymer. Through the doctor blade technique, a free-standing CuNWs-PDMS film was formed. Upon inserting the film in a laser cavity, nanosecond pulses with a stable mode-locking was observed past the threshold pump power of 104.62 mW. The laser operated at the center frequency of 1.86 MHz and wavelength of 1563.3 nm. At the maximum available pump power of 187.04 mW, the 173 ns mode-locked pulse train achieved the highest pulse energy of 9.14 nJ and the maximum average output power of 1.703 mW. These results vindicate the capacity of the CuNWs film SA in producing nanosecond mode-locked EDFL in the 1550 nm region.