Editing Q-switching (section)

==Typical performance==
A typical Q-switched laser (e.g. a Nd:YAG laser) with a resonator length of e.g. 10&nbsp;cm can produce light pulses of several tens of [[1 E-9 s|nanoseconds]] duration. Even when the average power is well below 1&nbsp;W, the peak power can be many kilowatts. Large-scale laser systems can produce Q-switched pulses with energies of many joules and peak powers in the gigawatt region. On the other hand, passively Q-switched microchip lasers (with very short resonators) have generated pulses with durations far below one nanosecond and pulse repetition rates from hundreds of [[hertz]] to several megahertz (MHz)