ULTRAFAST PHENOMENA - A LABORATORY EXPERIMENT FOR UNDERGRADUATES

We present a set of experiments that introduce students to ultrafast s cience. We discuss the relationship between the description of an ultr ashort laser pulse in the frequency domain and the time domain. Using experimental results we demonstrate that this relationship is constrai ned by the lower limit of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Studen ts carrying out the experiments will become familiar with ultrafast te chniques, such as autocorrelation and laser cavity design, as well as various other concepts such as dispersion, Fourier transformation, int erference, and nonlinear optics. (C) 1998 American Association of Phys ics Teachers.