Generation of a square-shaped pulse in mode-locked fiber lasers with a microfiber-based few-layer Nb₂C saturable absorber

Niobium carbide (Nb₂C), a novel two-dimensional MXene material, has attracted much attention due to its outstanding electronic and optical properties. In this work, a microfiber-based few-layer Nb₂C saturable absorber (SA) is fabricated by the magnetron sputtering deposition technique. The reverse saturable absorption (RSA) response of few-layer Nb₂C nanosheets is observed with I-scan measurements. The square-wave pulses (SWPs) are generated by using the as-prepared microfiber-based few-layer Nb₂C SA in an erbium-doped fiber laser. The SWP width increases from 0.33 to 2.061 ns with the single pulse energy increases linearly up to 0.89 nJ while the amplitude remains as a constant. In addition, nonlinear polarization rotation mode-locking fiber lasers with different cavity lengths are constructed to explore the formation conditions of SWP. Our results indicate that the RSA effect of the few-layer Nb₂C nanosheets plays a decisive role in the formation of the SWP.