Sub-5ps high-energy pulses from a fiber-amplified and compressed passively Q-switched microchip laser

Nonlinear optical pulse compression of high-energy and high-repetition rate (>500kHz) Q-switched pulses is obtained from a fiber-amplified microchip laser system. 92ps and 70ps pulses are SPM-broadened in a double-stage fiber amplifier extracting energies over 100J and subsequently compressed to 4.7ps and 2.7ps, respectively.