Chip-scale high-peak-power semiconductor/solid-state vertically integrated laser

Compact lasers capable of producing kilowatt class peak power are highly desirable for applications in various fields, including laser remote sensing, laser micromachining, and biomedical photonics. In this paper, we propose a high-peak-power chip-scale semiconductor/solid-state vertically integrated laser in which two cavities are optically coupled at the solid-state laser gain medium. The first cavity is for the intra-pumping of ytterbium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Yb:YAG) with an electrically driven indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) quantum well, and the second cavity consists of Yb:YAG and chromium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Cr:YAG) for passive Q-switching. The proposed laser produces pulses as short as 450 ps, and an estimated peak power of 57.0 kW with a laser chip dimension of 1 mm(3). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first monolithic integration of semiconductor and solid-state laser gain mediums to realize a compact high-peak-power laser.