David Hernández-Pinilla

The current need for coherent light sources for integrated (nano)photonics motivates the search for novel laser designs emitting at technologically relevant wavelengths with high‐frequency stability and low power consumption. Here, a new monolithic architecture that integrates monolayer MoS 2 and chains of silver nanoparticles on a rare‐earth (Nd 3+ ) doped LiNbO 3 platform is developed to demonstrate Q‐switched lasing operation at the nanoscale. The localized surface plasmons provided by the nanoparticle chains spatially confine the gain generated by Nd 3+ ions at subwavelength scales, and large‐area monolayer MoS 2 acts as saturable absorber. As a result, an ultra‐compact coherent pulsed light source delivering stable train pulses with repetition rates of hundreds of kHz and pulse duration of 1 µs is demonstrated without the need of any voltage‐driven optical modulation. Moreover, the monolithic integration of the different elements is achieved without sophisticated processing, and it is compatible with LiNbO 3 ‐based photonics. The results highlight the robustness of the approach, which can be extended to other 2D materials and solid‐state gain media. Potential applications in communications, quantum computing, or ultra‐sensitive sensing can benefit from the synergy of the materials involved in this approach, which provides a wealth of opportunities for light control at reduced scales.