Preface

The development and the application of the lasers have changed over the last almost 60 years, since the first idea of optical maser explored by Gordon Gould in 1956, and have dra‐ matically moved forward all research.

While owning the first lasers was the sole privilege of highly advanced countries in the world up to the current time, this trend is shifting, and other universities around the globe are extending the capabilities of their departments and divisions dealing with optics, pho‐ tonics, and lasers and its applications. Initially, the first lasers possessed very low gain in laser emission, low power in continuous wave (cw) or very long laser pulses. During the last half century, we have seen how these trends exponentially graduated, followed by rapid increase in laser power, starting from few milliwatts (1963), watts (1965), kilowatts (the late 1960s), megawatt (1970), gigawatt (pulsed lasers with peak power) (1975), terawatt (the 1980s), and petawatt (first peak power laser) (1996). Exawatt (EW) peak power laser is cur‐ rently under development within the European project called Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) that should be soon ready to deliver extremely high peak EW power laser pulse.

The time duration of laser pulses also evolved from nanosecond (ns) and picosecond (ps) laser pulses in 1970 up to first femtosecond (fs) pulse from dye laser (1980) and later from solid-state laser, Ti/sapphire; the femtosecond pulses were obtained in the 1990s. The first attosecond pulses were reported in 2001 pioneered from high-harmonic generation (HHG) process.

At present we can speak about two main streams in high-power laser technology. In the first stream, we can include large-scale laser laboratories whose main task is to possess extrahigh-peak power and/or ultra-short pulse lasers for study of terawatt (TW), petawatt (PW), and future exawatt (EW) laser interactions, acceleration of particles, or hot dense thermal plasma for the laser fusion.

Into the second stream, we can include the small-scale laboratories that are using for its re‐ search commercial sources of laser radiation—ns, ps, or fs laser beam.

The main task of this book is to expand the knowledge of the readers in both of these sepa‐ rate streams, which are often perceived as diametrically different and distinct. Why both streams? The answer is relatively easy; this is due to their common essence—the photons and light coherency.

This book is divided into six main sections dealing with short and ultrashort laser pulses, laser-produced soft X-ray sources, large-scale high-power laser systems, free-electron lasers, fiber-based sources of short optical pulse, and applications of short pulse lasers. In each chapter readers can find fascinating topics related to the high energy and/or short pulse la‐

ser technique. Naturally it is not possible to include all topics into this book, and neither was it meant like that. This book should serve as an engaging motivation for the readers to search for more scientific publications about this fascinating laser era.

It will be exciting to observe what the further development of lasers and its applications will offer within the next 60 years and how it will influence our everyday life. As the conse‐ quence of the progressive development of these technologies, it initially enabled a day-today usage of the LED diodes for lighting of our homes or LED displays, up to the applications in nanotechnology for production of electronic chips, in measurement diagnos‐ tics, in medicine, in biomedical technology, in mechatronics, in engineering, in automotive and aviation industry, as well as for the security and in defense technology.

In conclusion, I would like to thank all of the authors for conscientious preparation and for‐ mulation of individual book chapters that should serve the broad spectrum of readers of different expertise, layman, undergraduate and postgraduate students, scientists, and engi‐ neers, who may in this book find easily explained fundamentals as well as advanced princi‐ ples of particular subjects related to high energy and short pulse laser phenomenon. Each chapter has well-compiled references of particular subject, from reviews to more advance literature, for eager readers who may find more details or further relevant work into each subtopic.

Finally, I would like to wish all the readers a pleasant experience during the reading of this exciting research and gaining new knowledge, which hopefully will be used for further ex‐ plorations of this topic, with new ideas, research, and applications for our upcoming genera‐ tion, in peace.

> **RnDr. Dr. Eng. Richard Viskup, MSc., MPhil., PhD** Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria

**Short and Ultrashort Laser Pulses**

ser technique. Naturally it is not possible to include all topics into this book, and neither was it meant like that. This book should serve as an engaging motivation for the readers to

It will be exciting to observe what the further development of lasers and its applications will offer within the next 60 years and how it will influence our everyday life. As the conse‐ quence of the progressive development of these technologies, it initially enabled a day-today usage of the LED diodes for lighting of our homes or LED displays, up to the applications in nanotechnology for production of electronic chips, in measurement diagnos‐ tics, in medicine, in biomedical technology, in mechatronics, in engineering, in automotive

In conclusion, I would like to thank all of the authors for conscientious preparation and for‐ mulation of individual book chapters that should serve the broad spectrum of readers of different expertise, layman, undergraduate and postgraduate students, scientists, and engi‐ neers, who may in this book find easily explained fundamentals as well as advanced princi‐ ples of particular subjects related to high energy and short pulse laser phenomenon. Each chapter has well-compiled references of particular subject, from reviews to more advance literature, for eager readers who may find more details or further relevant work into each

Finally, I would like to wish all the readers a pleasant experience during the reading of this exciting research and gaining new knowledge, which hopefully will be used for further ex‐ plorations of this topic, with new ideas, research, and applications for our upcoming genera‐

**RnDr. Dr. Eng. Richard Viskup, MSc., MPhil., PhD**

Johannes Kepler University Linz,

Austria

search for more scientific publications about this fascinating laser era.

and aviation industry, as well as for the security and in defense technology.

subtopic.

X Preface

tion, in peace.
