Editor's note

• 来源期刊: 科学通报（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2008,（5）
• 页码范围: 641
• 页数: 1页
• 语种: 英文
• DOI: 10.1007/s11434-008-0163-2

摘要

The past two decades have witnessed great progress in development of ultrashort laser pulse in laser science, often at an unexpected speed. It has found various applications, both theoretical and practical, in the frontiers of science. The femtosecond laser, with the state-of-the-art artificial crystals as the gain medium, is more compact, more reliable and more flexible than the traditional dye laser. Since the self-mode-locking phenomenon in Ti:sapphire laser was first discovered by W. Sibbett et al. in 1990, researchers have managed to obtain laser pulses shorter than 5 fs from a laser cavity that is the size of a notebook computer. The novel femtosecond mode-locked fiber laser shows unprecedented robustness and simplicity.