The motivating idea of the first Topical Meeting on Picosecond Phenomena, which took place at Hilton Head Island in 1978, was to bring together scien tists and engineers in a congenial setting who were developing picosecond lasers with those who were applying them to problems in chemistry, physics, electronics, and biology. The field has advanced remarkably in the following six years. This is reflected in the size of the conference which has more than doubled in the past six years and now includes scientists from many countries around the world. As evidenced by the papers in this volume, the appl ication of ultrafast 1 ight pulses continues to grow in new and diverse directions encompassing an increasingly wide range of subject areas. This progress has gone hand-in-hand with the development of new and more precise methods of generating and measuring ultrafast light pulses, which now extend well into the femtosecond time domain. It was this latter advance which was responsible for changing the name of the conference to Ultrafast Phenomena. The 1984 meeting was held at the Monterey Conference Center in Monterey, Cal ifornia from June 11 to 15 under the sponsorship of the Optical Society of America. A total of 320 registered participants, including 65 students, attended the three and one-half day conference. The overall enthusiasm of the participants, the high quality of the research presented, and ambiance of the setting combined to produce a successful and enjoyable conference."

This second edition in paperback provides an up-to-date review of the state of the art in different generation processes for ultrashort laser pulses. Inaddition, extensive applications in a wide range of fields - in physics,engineering, chemistry, and biology - are discussed: Eight chapters dealwith the following topics: -the generation of picosecond and femtosecond laser pulses -nonlinear wave interactions - new investigations in solid-state physics - recent progress in optoelectronics - advances in coherent material excitations - ultrafast vibrational lifetimes and energy redistribution in liquids - new observations of chemical reactions in the liquid state - the primary processes of important biological systems The book is essential reading for scientists and engineers who want to know what is going on in this rapidly advancing field. It should also interest graduate students and others who seek an introduction to laserpulses.