A system including an actively Q-switched fiber laser cavity, said Q-switched fiber laser cavity comprising: an optical resonator cavity; a pump source for emitting a laser beam at a wavelength along an optical path; an active optical medium disposed in the optical cavity along the optical path; and a modulation device configured to introduce tunable losses into the optical path, the tunable losses inducing a modulation of the cavity Q, the modulation of the cavity Q being performed over (i) a first period of time (t*) in which a cavity Q curve increases from a first percentage value to a second percentage value of a maximum Q value and (ii) a second period of time (t rise) in which the cavity Q curve increases from a third percentage value to a fourth percentage value of the maximum Q value, the cavity Q curve non-linearly and smoothly transitioning between (i) the first and second percentage values (702, 704) and (ii) the third and fourth percentage values (706, 708), wherein the modulation device is a radiofrequency driven acousto-optic modulator, characterized in that the first period of time (t*) is approximately the same as a laser cavity round-trip time, wherein the Q-switched fiber laser cavity further comprises a filtering circuit (412, 500) configured to apply an input signal (414, 514) into said modulation device to cause said modulation device to modulate the laser beam, said filtering circuit including a first low-pass filter circuit and a second low-pass filter circuit serially connected to the output of the first low-pass filter circuit, the first low-pass filter is configured to filter a square wave to form a first low-pass filtered signal as a square wave having rounded upper corners by removing high-frequency components from the input square wave and the second low-pass filter is configured to filter the first low-pass filtered signal to produce a second filtered square wave that is output from the filtering circuit and applied as an input signal to the acousto-optic modulator, and the first percentage value is approximately zero percent, wherein the second percent value is approximately twenty percent, wherein the third percent value is approximately ten percent, and wherein the fourth percentage value is approximately ninety percent. an optical resonator cavity; a pump source for emitting a laser beam at a wavelength along an optical path; an active optical medium disposed in the optical cavity along the optical path; and a modulation device configured to introduce tunable losses into the optical path, the tunable losses inducing a modulation of the cavity Q, the modulation of the cavity Q being performed over (i) a first period of time (t*) in which a cavity Q curve increases from a first percentage value to a second percentage value of a maximum Q value and (ii) a second period of time (t rise) in which the cavity Q curve increases from a third percentage value to a fourth percentage value of the maximum Q value, the cavity Q curve non-linearly and smoothly transitioning between (i) the first and second percentage values (702, 704) and (ii) the third and fourth percentage values (706, 708), wherein the modulation device is a radiofrequency driven acousto-optic modulator, characterized in that the first period of time (t*) is approximately the same as a laser cavity round-trip time, wherein the Q-switched fiber laser cavity further comprises a filtering circuit (412, 500) configured to apply an input signal (414, 514) into said modulation device to cause said modulation device to modulate the laser beam, said filtering circuit including a first low-pass filter circuit and a second low-pass filter circuit serially connected to the output of the first low-pass filter circuit, the first low-pass filter is configured to filter a square wave to form a first low-pass filtered signal as a square wave having rounded upper corners by removing high-frequency components from the input square wave and the second low-pass filter is configured to filter the first low-pass filtered signal to produce a second filtered square wave that is output from the filtering circuit and applied as an input signal to the acousto-optic modulator, and the first percentage value is approximately zero percent, wherein the second percent value is approximately twenty percent, wherein the third percent value is approximately ten percent, and wherein the fourth percentage value is approximately ninety percent.