  Passive Q-switching of an ytterbium-doped fiber (YDF) laser with few-layer
topological insulator (TI) is, to the best of our knowledge, experimentally
demonstrated for the first time. The few-layer TI: Bi2Se3 (2-4 layer thickness)
is fabricated by the liquid-phase exfoliation method, and has a low saturable
optical intensity of 53 MW/cm2 measured by the Z-scan technique. The optical
deposition technique is used to induce the few-layer TI in the solution onto a
fiber ferrule for successfully constructing the fiber-integrated TI-based
saturable absorber (SA). By inserting this SA into the YDF laser cavity, stable
Q-switching operation at 1.06 {\mu}m is achieved. The Q-switched pulses have
the shortest pulse duration of 1.95 {\mu}s, the maximum pulse energy of 17.9 nJ
and a tunable pulse-repetition-rate from 8.3 to 29.1 kHz. Our results indicate
that the TI as a SA is also available at 1 {\mu}m waveband, revealing its
potential as another wavelength-independent SA (like graphene).
