Passively Q-switching induced by the smallest single-walled carbon nanotubes

We report a passively Q-switched erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) by using the smallest single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with a diameter of 0.3 nm as the saturable absorber. These small SWNTs are fabricated in the nanochannels of a ZnAPO-11 (AEL) single crystal. By inserting one of the AEL crystal into an EDFL cavity pumped by a 980 nm laser diode, stable passive Q-switching is achieved for a threshold pump power of 206.2 mW, and 4.73 μs pulses with a repetition rate of 41.78 kHz and an average output power of 3.75 mW are obtained for a pump power of 406 mW.