Indium tin oxide thin film based saturable absorber for Q-switching in C-band region

An indium tin oxide (ITO) thin film based saturable absorber (SA) is proposed and demonstrated for the operation of Q-switched pulse within the C-band region. The ITO was deposited through DC magnetron sputtering method. The thickness of ITO was 86.40 nm and it was measured using F20 Filmetrics. The deposited fiber ferrule was incorporated in an erbium-doped fiber (EDF) laser cavity for generating a stable Q-switching pulse. The generated output pulses displayed a repetition rate that ranged between 16.74 kHz and 38.03 kHz. The shortest pulse width retrieved was 5.78 µs at the maximum pump power of 165.5mW, while the maximum pulse energy recorded was 12.30 nJ. These results show that ITO has the potential to be used for pulsed laser applications.