we experimentally investigated the nonlinear saturable absorption characteristics of molybdenum ditelluride (mote2) and demonstrated a wavelength-switchable mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser (edfl) by using mote2 thin film on side-polished fiber (spf) as saturable absorber. here, the mote2 thin film was efficiently fabricated via mechanical exfoliation method and transferred onto the spf with the assistance of polydimethylsiloxane (pdms). mote2-covered spf (mspf) exhibits the nonlinear saturable absorption for pulses with different polarization states. optical solitons with spectral bandwidth of 1.06 (1.31) nm centered at similar to 1559 (similar to 1528) nm and pulse duration of 2.46 (2.04) ps can be obtained from the edfl by adjusting the polarization controller (pc) properly. the time-bandwidth product (tbp) of the pulses was calculated as 0.322 (0.344). (c) 2017 elsevier ltd. all rights reserved.