Investigation of ultrafast phenomena in the femtosecond time domain.

Rapid progress has taken place in the generation and application of femtosecond optical pulses. The impact of these developments is being felt in a broad range of scientific fields, including physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. These rapidly evolving techniques have been applied to such diverse problems as phase transitions in highly excited semiconductors, molecular photofragment spectroscopy, impulsive phonon generation in solids, and optical radar ranging through biological tissue.