From the reviews: "The book is mainly written for the physically experienced scientists working in the field of short pulses or for those physicists who start to work in this field but are experienced in comparable fields of their science. The book is well-suited for this purpose, since it introduces the related areas of science in a comprehensive and clearly laid out manner ... It is a pleasure to read and a scientific profit to study ..." Optics & Laser Technology "I use femtosecond lasers in my graduate work, and I found this book an excellent source of review material in preparing for my oral examinations. It is not very detailed or mathematical, but has excellent phenomenonological discussions of a variety of laser properties and techniques ... I found particularly useful the sections on amplification, semiconductor lasers, and ultrashort diagnostics." Eric Landahl, Graduate Student, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

• Laser Basics.- Pulsed Optics.- Methods for the Generation of Ultrashort Laser Pulses: Mode-Locking.- Further Methods for the Generation of Ultrashort Optical Pulses.- Pulsed Semiconductor Lasers.- How to Manipulate and Change the Characteristics of Laser Pulses.- How to Measure the Characteristics of Laser Pulses.- Spectroscopic Methods for Analysis of Sample Dynamics.- Coherent Effects in Femtosecond Spectroscopy: A Simple Picture Using the Bloch Equation.- Terahertz Femtosecond Pulses.- Coherent Control in Atoms, Molecules and Solids.- Attosecond Pulses.

From the reviews: "The book is mainly written for the physically experienced scientists working in the field of short pulses or for those physicists who start to work in this field but are experienced in comparable fields of their science. The book is well-suited for this purpose, since it introduces the related areas of science in a comprehensive and clearly laid out manner ... It is a pleasure to read and a scientific profit to study ..." Optics & Laser Technology "I use femtosecond lasers in my graduate work, and I found this book an excellent source of review material in preparing for my oral examinations. It is not very detailed or mathematical, but has excellent phenomenonological discussions of a variety of laser properties and techniques ... I found particularly useful the sections on amplification, semiconductor lasers, and ultrashort diagnostics." Eric Landahl, Graduate Student, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

• Laser Basics.- Pulsed Optics.- Methods for the Generation of Ultrashort Laser Pulses: Mode-Locking.- Further Methods for the Generation of Ultrashort Optical Pulses.- Pulsed Semiconductor Lasers.- How to Manipulate and Change the Characteristics of Laser Pulses.- How to Measure the Characteristics of Laser Pulses.- Spectroscopic Methods for Analysis of Sample Dynamics.- Coherent Effects in Femtosecond Spectroscopy: A Simple Picture Using the Bloch Equation.- Terahertz Femtosecond Pulses.- Coherent Control in Atoms, Molecules and Solids.- Attosecond Pulses.