An experimental and theoretical study on the wave clipping of 355 nm laser is conducted by using the laser induced plasma shutter technique. Five lenses with different focus are adopted to investigate the effects of the focus of lens and the laser pulse energies on pulse compression, and it is found that the best result can be obtained with the focus of 200 mm. While the focus of lens is 200 mm and the pulse energy is 160 mJ, the shortest pulse width of 3.47 ns is obtained. Under the ionization of the Cu pinhole and the atmospheric breakdown, the output pulse width can be further shortened to 2.11 ns. In addition, the measured atmospheric breakdown threshold induced by laser at 355 nm is in agreement with theoretical data.