Ultrafast Optics and Applications

Ultrafast lasers are widely used as probes for chemistry, material science, biology, flow dynamics, and environmental science, as well as for generating ultra-intense light, relativistic particle beams, and attosecond light bursts. This course explores the technology and applications of ultrafast lasers, which produce pulses shorter than 1 picosecond. Ultrashort pulse generation techniques - including mode-locked oscillators, chirped pulse amplification, and optical parametric amplification - and pulse measurement methods such as frequency-resolved optical gating and high-order autocorrelations are discussed.