Colloquium: Marcos Dantus

Control of nonlinear optical interference using shaped laser pulses has led to a number of technical advances in pulse characterization, compression, shaping, metrology and fiber laser design. These developments have then been used to improve biomedical imaging, standoff detection and gas phase thermometry. The fragmentation of molecules under strong fields has led to analytical methods for small molecule identification and to advanced techniques for proteomic analysis. This presentation will discuss some of the principles of ultrafast pulse shaping and illustrate the most salient applications.