ULTRAFAST LASER AND AMPLIFIER SOURCES

There has been remarkable progress in the devel opment of high peak-po wer ultrafast lasers in recent years. Lasers capable of generating ter awatt peak powers with unprecedented short pulse durations can now be built on a single optical table in a small laboratory. The rapid techn ological progress has made possible a host of new scientific advances in high-field science, such as the generation of coherent femtosecond X-ray pulses, and the generation of MeV-energy electron beams and high -energy ions. In this paper, we review progress in the development and design of ultrafast high-power lasers based on Ti:sapphire, including the ultrafast laser oscillators that are a very important enabling te chnology for high-power ultrafast systems, and ultrafast amplified las er systems that generate 20 fs duration pulses with several watts aver age power at kilohertz repetition-rates. Ultrafast waveform measuremen ts of these pulses demonstrate that such short pulses can be generated with high fidelity. Finally, we discuss applications of ultrafast hig h-power pulses, including the generation of femtosecond to attosecond X-ray pulses.