This book is an advanced textbook for scientists who require further training in femtosecond science. It is the result of a scientific adventure that started in 1991. At this time, the French Ministry of Education decided that, in view of the growing importance of ultrashort laser pulses for the national scientific community, a Femtosecond Centre should be created in France and devoted to the further education of scientists who use femtosecond pulses as a research tool and who are not specialists in lasers or even in optics. After different proposals from different institutions, Universite Bordeaux I and our laboratory were finally selected to ensure the success of this new centre. Since the scientists involved were located· throughout France, it was decided that the training courses should be concentrated into a short period of at least 5 days. It is certainly a challenge to give a good grounding in the science of femtosecond pulses in such a short period to scientists who do not necessarily have the required scientific background and are in some cases involved only as users of these pulses as a tool. To start, we contacted well-known specialists from the French femtosecond community; we are very thankful that they showed their enthusiasm and immediately started work on this fascinating project. Our adventure began in 1992 and each year since, generally in spring, we have organized a one-week femtosecond training course at the Bordeaux University.
