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Low-loss flake-graphene saturable absorber mirror for laser mode-locking at sub-200-fs pulse duration

Saturable absorbers are a key component for mode-locking femtosecond lasers. Polymer films containing graphene flakes have recently been used in transmission as laser mode-lockers, but suffer from high nonsaturable loss, limiting their application in low-gain lasers. Here we present a saturable absorber mirror based on a film of pure graphene flakes. The device is used to mode lock an erbium-doped fiber laser, generating pulses with state-of-the-art, sub-200-fs duration. The laser characteristic indicate that the film exhibits low nonsaturable loss (13% per pass) and large absorption modulation depth (45% of low-power absorption).