ultrafast optics

In optics, an ultrashort pulse of light is an electromagnetic pulse whose time duration is on the order of the femtosecond ( second). Such pulses have a broadband optical spectrum, and can be created by mode-locked oscillators. They are commonly referred to as ultrafast events.They are characterized by a high peak intensity (or more correctly, irradiance) that usually leads to nonlinear interactions in various materials, including air. These processes are studied in the field of nonlinear optics.In the specialized literature, "ultrashort" refers to the femtosecond (fs) to picosecond (ps) range, although such pulses no longer hold the record for the shortest pulses artificially generated. Indeed, pulse durations on the attosecond time scale have been reported.
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