<title>Picosecond Laser Pulses</title>

Abstract

During the last few years, a five order of magnitude jump has been made in researchers' ability to generate short light pulses (i.e., from 10^-8 sec to 10^-13 sec) having peak powers in excess of 106 watts. During this same period, a three order of magnitude jump in our ability to generate high peak powers - (i.e., from 10⁹ w to 10¹² w) and to measure (10^-10 sec to 10^-13 sec) short duration light pulses. This paper will review the techniques utilized to generate and measure these powerful "bullets" of light.