Ultrashort Laser Pulse Phenomena serves as an introduction to the phenomena of ultrashort laser pulses and describes how this technology can be applied in areas such as spectroscopy, medical imaging, electromagnetism, optics, and quantum physics. Combining the principles with experimental techniques, the book serves as a guide to designing and constructing femtosecond systems.
The second edition has updated and expanded its content, and includes more examples of ultrashort sources and a more comprehensive fundamentals chapter. Diagnostic techniques and applications involving sensors, mode-locked lasers, and imaging have been fully revised to include current technologies.
Written in a tutorial style, this book is suitable for senior undergraduate and graduate students as well as engineers and scientists working in the areas of optics, spectroscopy, optical imaging, photochemistry, and ultrafast science and engineering.
*Provides an easy to follow guide through "faster than electronics" probing and detection methods
*THE manual on designing and constructing femtosecond systems and experiments
*Discusses essential technology for applications in micro-machining, femtochemistry, and medical imaging

A laser of sufficient intensity traveling through air will - by itself - engineer a narrow channel over which light will propagate for tens or even hundreds of meters. Such filaments of laser light were first created at the end of the twentieth century, and investigators are now beginning to explore new applications for them. Light Filaments: Structures, challenges and applications brings together exciting results from this area of research. With the development of high repetition rate sources, new aspects of waveguiding are emerging based on the hydrodynamic perturbation created by each filamenting pulse. This book is organized from general overviews to more specialized topics and is aimed at those involved in lasers and other optical wave propagation systems. The goal of this book is to cover the multiple aspects of light filamentation from strong field ionization and molecular properties to laser development and beam shaping, and the wide range of radiation associated with it from THz, lasing in air to supercontinuum generation. The book starts with tutorial chapters about the science of filamentation, followed by in depth chapters on the latest research, technologies and applications in atmospheric studies, guiding waves, laser induced discharge and lightning. This book is the result of a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives (MURI) Program on light filaments from the USA Army Research Office.