Saturable Absorbers as a mechanism of mode-locking

It is known that Saturable Absorbers are used for passive mode-locking and Q switch-ing of lasers-i.e. the generation of short optical pulses. Artificial Saturable absorbers are most used techniques. They are used to obtain square pulses in DSR region as will be discussed in this report. However, they have some disadvantages, and they are not the best option in some situations. That is the reason why there is a need for finding an ideal saturable absorber which would be low cost, easy to fabricate and have some interesting optical properties. Two-dimensional materials have emerged in the field of ultrafast lasers since they seem to be the perfects candidates. This project will have the characterization of 2D materials onto a microfibre taper. In this report, two experiments will take place, where artificial and real saturable absorbers are uti-lised to obtain mode locking under certain circumstances.