SnSe Nanosheets for Subpicosecond Harmonic Mode-Locked Pulse Generation.

Tin diselenide (SnSe ) nanosheets as novel 2D layered materials have excellent optical properties with many promising application prospects, such as photoelectric detectors, nonlinear optics, infrared photoelectric devices, and ultrafast photonics. Among them, ultrafast photonics has attracted much attention due to its enormous advantages; for instance, extremely fast pulse, strong peak power, and narrow bandwidth. In this work, SnSe nanosheets are fabricated by using solvothermal treatment, and the characteristics of SnSe are systemically investigated. In addition, the solution of SnSe nanosheets is successfully prepared as a fiber-based saturable absorber by utilizing the evanescent field effect, which can bear a high pump power. 31st-order subpicosecond harmonic mode locking is generated in an Er-doped fiber laser, corresponding to the maximum repetition rate of 257.3 MHz and pulse duration of 887 fs. The results show that SnSe can be used as an excellent nonlinear photonic device in many fields, such as frequency comb, lasers, photodetectors, etc.