Dark pulses are optical structures with fascinating fundamental physics and have a great wealth of optical properties yet to be better explored. Since the earliest demonstration of a dark pulse, its generation was very limited, depending on specific experimental setups for its observation. However, the development of new saturable absorber (SA) materials with exceptional nonlinear optical properties have provided an efficient method for generating dark pulses in fiber laser cavities. In this perspective, this paper presents a review focused on recent progress in optical dark pulses generation based on SA materials. Specifically, materials such as graphene and its oxides, carbon nanotubes, transition metal dichalcogenides, transition metal trichalcogenides, metalloid trichalcogenides, black phosphorus, indium tin oxide, ferroferric oxide, ferromagnetic insulator, graphite oxide, and even glycerin and thulium-doped fiber will be approached here as promising candidates for SA materials. Nonlinear optical properties of these materials, configurations of experimental setups, as well as future perspectives are addressed in this review for the advancements in photonics technologies.

暗脉冲是具有引人入胜的基本物理学的光学结构，并且具有大量的光学性质，尚待进一步研究。由于最早显示了暗脉冲，因此其生成非常有限，这取决于用于观察的特定实验设置。但是，具有优异的非线性光学特性的新型可饱和吸收体（SA）材料的开发提供了一种在光纤激光腔中产生暗脉冲的有效方法。从这个角度出发，本文针对基于SA材料的光学暗脉冲产生的最新进展进行了综述。具体而言，材料包括石墨烯及其氧化物，碳纳米管，过渡金属二卤化物，过渡金属三卤化物，准金属三卤化物，黑磷，氧化铟锡，三氧化二铁，铁磁绝缘体，氧化石墨，甚至甘油和掺-的光纤将在这里成为SA材料的有前途的候选材料。这些材料的非线性光学特性，实验装置的配置以及未来的观点在本综述中都针对光子学技术的进步进行了阐述。