Ultrafast Optics-the science, technology, and applications of ultrashort laser pulses-is one of the most exciting and dynamic fields of science. While ultrashort laser pulses seem quite exotic (they're the shortest events ever created!), their applications are many, ranging from the study of ultrafast fundamental events to telecommunications to micro-machining to biomedical imaging, to name a few. Interestingly, these lasers are easy to understand, and they are readily available. But their use requires some sophistication. This course is a basic introduction to the nature of these lasers, their use, and some of their applications.

To measure an event in time requires a shorter one. As a result, the development of a technique to measure ultrashort laser pulses--less than a picosecond long and the shortest events ever created--has been particularly difficult. Recently, however, revolutionary new techniques have emerged for fully measuring these ephemeral, seemingly unmeasurable events, and this course will describe them in detail.