Passively mode‐locked Tm:YAP laser with a V2AlC saturable absorber

Abstract In this work, a V 2 AlC‐based saturable absorber (SA) was applied to a 2 μm band passively mode‐locked (PML) laser. The saturation intensity and modulation depth of the V 2 AlC‐based SA were detected by the I‐scan method, which were 225.05 MW/cm 2 and 7.68%, respectively. In the PML mode, an average power of 2.12 W at 1939 nm and a pulse width of 1077 ps at 82.49 MHz were obtained from the Tm:YAP laser. In addition, the laser exhibited a good beam quality factor ( M 2 ) which was measured to be less than 1.2. These results will pave the way for the application of V 2 AlC‐based SA in ultrafast lasers.