This thesis is intended to be a comprehensive study on the use of pulsed laser deposition to fabricate planar waveguide devices. As such, a thorough review into the state of the art of current activities in this area is initially presented. A buried Nd:GGG waveguide laser has been fabricated for the first time by PLD and has achieved lasing action at a threshold of 14.8 mW of absorbed power. Comparison of the lasing threshold to that of similar uncapped devices demonstrate that the capped layer has a highly beneficial effect on the lasing threshold when the particulate density in the film is high.