Ultrashort flash of light: Contemporary laser source

Our ability to perceive the dynamics of nature is ultimately limited by the temporal resolution of the instruments available. Ultrashort lasers have, in the course of last few decades, advanced the temporal resolution of measurements into the femtosecond regime, greatly improving our capability to understand nature. Most ultrashort pulses have durations much longer than the time taken for electric field to complete one oscillation or cycle. 

I will discuss some applications of propagation of ultrashort laser pulses in transparent media and methods to generate few-cycle laser pulses (~ 2 to 3 cycles) corresponding to laser pulse duration of ~ 5 to 8 fs. In this regime, the phase of the carrier with respect to the pulse envelope becomes important. The relative phase offset between envelope and carrier for a laser pulse is not constant and experiences random fluctuations. These fluctuations are characterized by the change of the phase between the pulse envelope peak and the maximum of the carrier known as carrier envelope phase (CE phase). Stabilization of carrier-envelope (CE) phase in few-cycle laser pulses will be discussed.