Femtosecond Mode-Locked Yb:KYW Laser Based on InP Nanowire Saturable Absorber

In this letter, indium phosphide (InP) nanowires (NWs) are fabricated by Au-nanoparticle assisted vapor-liquid-solid method and applied as a saturable absorber (SA) for continuous-wave (CW) mode-locked femtosecond Yb:KYW bulk laser. I-scan method was used to characterize the saturable absorption properties of the prepared InP NWs SA. Pulses as short as 394 fs with the repetition rate of 41.5 MHz and maximum average output power of 315 mW are achieved. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of InP NWs working as SA for the fs-pulse generation in the solid-state bulk laser. The results indicate that InP NWs are a promising SA candidate for applications in ultrafast photonic devices.