Rare-earth Yttrium oxide as Q-switcher in fiber laser system

Yttrium Oxide (Y2O3), a rare-earth material is used as saturable absorber (SA) to induce Q-switching operation in 1.55 mu m regime. The Y2O3 was embedded into polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to form a thin film so that it can be easily integrated into an Erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) cavity for modulating the cavity loss. A robust and stable Qswitched pulse centered at 1560.53 nm operating wavelength has been obtained with the integration of Y2O3PVA SA in the EDFL cavity. The repetition rate of the Q-switched pulse can be varied from 88.03 kHz to 99.22 kHz with the change of pump power from 128.92 mW to 175.87 mW while the corresponding pulse duration reduces from 3.30 mu s to 2.97 mu s. Also, the analyzed peak power of the pulse increased from 40.92 mW to 52.67 mW within the pump power region.