Supervisor: Søren Ulstrup

The Nobel prize in physics in 2018 was awarded to Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou “for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.” Their work revolutionised the field of experimental optics and has unlocked countless exciting discoveries in numerous subjects.

In this colloquium I will discuss what makes an ultrafast laser pulse and how we can produce them. Then I will take a detour via the different ways we can measure the pulses themselves, before delving into a few of the ways we use ultrafast lasers today in physics and physical chemistry.