Femtosecond science: from concepts to applications

Teacher : Olivier Faucher

The course is related to the fundamental concepts and applications of ultra-short femtosecond) lasers. In the first part, the linear and nonlinear optical phenomena encountered in the propagation of an intense and ultra-short laser pulse are described. We derive simple formulas for evaluating spatial and temporal pulse distortions depending on the input energy of the laser and the material media. The second part is devoted to simple analytical models developed within the framework of perturbation theory. They provide useful tools for the description of femtosecond processes like, for instance, wave packet analysis measured though pump-probe techniques, production of terahertz radiations, photon echoes, parametric generation of the new wavelengths, and CARS spectroscopy.