Post-growth tailoring of quantum-dot saturable absorber mirrors by chemical etching

We have designed and grown a resonant, low-finesse quantum-dot saturable absorber mirror and subsequently modified the important parameters using chemical etching. The modulation depth and saturation fluence at the design wavelength of 1064 nm were modified by etching the sample to tune the cavity resonance. The device properties were characterised using normal incidence spectroscopic reflectivity measurements, intensity dependent reflectivity measurements and modelled using a transfer matrix approach. The saturable absorber mirror was used to facilitate self-starting, passively mode locked pulses in a neodymium vanadate laser operating at 1064 nm. The etching was found to affect the duration of the pulses, leading to temporal width tuning over a range of 94 ps. The shortest pulse duration of 84 ps was achieved for the cavity resonance close to 1064 nm, with an output power of 3 W. This method is an effective technique for post-growth engineering of the properties of semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs) with nanometre precision.