Saturable absorption in one-dimensional SbSe nanowires in the visible to near-infrared region.

One-dimensional (1D) free-standing nanowires are particularly important for carrier confinement in two dimensions, which provides a platform to explore the nonlinear optical phenomena at the nanoscale. In this Letter, we demonstrate saturable absorption in the resonant and above-bandgap excitations of both ns and fs pulses in 1D crystalline SbSe nanowires prepared by the facile hydrothermal method. Impressively, the average length of the nanowires extends to a few micrometers with a high aspect ratio of 300. The excited-state to ground-state absorption cross-section ratio in SbSe nanowires is ≈0.23, which suggests that they can be utilized as passive mode lockers.