Ultrashort pulses

Ultrashort light pulses play a central role in the research of ultrafast natural phenomena. The vast majority of the light sources producing such pulses are based on solid-state laser technology, and are operating in the near IR spectral range. However, many applications need pulses at shorter wavelengths. Especially, the deep UV (DUV; 190-300 nm) spectral range is interesting, where many atoms and small molecules have resonances. Furthermore, due to the much shorter wavelength, many light-induced processes (eg. photo-ionization) have qualitatively different nature by using DUV excitation.
Therefore, our goal is to contribute to the extension of the scope of ultrafast science to the DUV spectral range, by the

• development of high-energy ultrashort DUV light source,
• development of adequate techniques for handling and characterization of ultrashort DUV pulses.