  Few-cycle pulses present an essential tool to track ultrafast dynamics in
matter and drive strong field effects. To address photon-hungry applications,
high average power lasers are used which, however, cannot directly provide
sub-100 fs pulse durations. Post-compression of laser pulses by spectral
broadening and dispersion compensation is the most efficient method to overcome
this limitation. Here, we demonstrate a notably compact setup which turns a 0.1
GW peak power, picosecond laser into a 2.9 GW peak power, 8.2 fs source. The
120-fold pulse duration shortening is accomplished in a two-stage hybrid
multi-pass, multi-plate compression setup. To our knowledge, neither shorter
pulses, nor higher peak powers have been reported to-date from bulk multi-pass
cells alone, manifesting the power of the hybrid approach. It puts, for
instance, compact, cost-efficient and high repetition rate attosecond sources
within reach.
