Graphene for ultrafast lasers

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• Giancarlo Soavi (Cambridge Graphene Centre)
• Thursday 12 October 2017, 13:10-14:00
• The Richard King Room, Darwin College.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Lorena Escudero.

Laser sources producing nanosecond (10-9 s) to sub-picosecond (10-12 s) pulses (i.e. ultrafast lasers) are deployed in a variety of applications ranging from scientific research, laser surgery, material processing and telecommunications. Regardless of the output wavelength, the majority of ultrafast laser systems employ a mode-locking technique, whereby a nonlinear optical element – called Saturable Absorber (SA) – turns the laser continuous wave output into a train of ultrashort optical pulses. The SA absorption (or optical loss) decreases as the incident light intensity increases. Thus, the SA works as an intensity-dependent optical switch. The key requirements for SAs are fast response time, high modulation depth, broad wavelength range, low optical loss, low-cost and ease of integration into an optical system. Graphene, a one atom thick layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice, can simultaneously meet all these needs with better performances and lower cost compared to current technologies. In this seminar I will introduce the basic concepts of ultrafast lasers and mode-locking and their importance for technological applications. I will then review the fundamental physical properties that make graphene the ideal candidate as saturable absorber for ultrafast lasers on an extremely broad energy range from visible to THz.

This talk is part of the Darwin College Science Seminars series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• AUB_Cambridge Seminars
• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise
• Chris Davis' list
• Darwin College Research Talks
• Darwin College Science Seminars
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• Neurons, Fake News, DNA and your iPhone: The Mathematics of Information
• The Richard King Room, Darwin College
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