Laser-diode pumped passively Q-switched solid-state lasers,with compact configuration,excellent beam quality owing to good match-up of pump and laser light,easy to achieve sub-nanosecond pulse width and high peak power, have widely applications in laser processing,telecommunications,surgery,biology,material microstructure analysis and so on.In the past decade,dramatic progresses have been made in passively Q-switched solid-state lasers based on ytterbium doped laser material and saturable absorber such as Cr4+:YAG,semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM).Passively Q-switched Yb³⁺ doped solid-state lasers have achieved not only the same high peak power output,but also with better efficiency and flexible designs.The progresses and future work on passively Q-switched Yb³⁺ doped laser materials microchip lasers have been overviewed.