Niobium diselenide nanosheets for a vector soliton fiber laser

Abstract

Niobium diselenide (NbSe₂), an emerging group VB transition metal dichalcogenide, has been widely used in materials science, chemistry, and physics, while the applications of NbSe₂ in ultrafast photonics are still rare. In this study, a NbSe₂-based saturable absorber (NbSe₂-SA) is proposed by depositing NbSe₂ nanosheets on the surface of a microfiber, whose modulation depth is up to 8.8%. Based on the NbSe₂-SA, conventional solitons with an ultrashort pulse duration of 697 fs are achieved, which are proved to be polarization-locked vector solitons by further study. The results show that group VB transition metal dichalcogenides, including NbSe₂, could be developed as effective SAs for generating ultrafast pulses, especially vector pulses.