Strong terahertz (THz) electric and magnetic transients open up new horizons in science
and applications. We review the most promising way of achieving sub-cycle THz pulses with …

The advent of chirped-pulse amplification in the 1980s and femtosecond Ti: sapphire lasers
in the 1990s enabled transformative advances in intense laser–matter interaction physics …

Extreme nonlinear interactions of THz electromagnetic fields with matter are the next frontier
in nonlinear optics. However, reaching this frontier in free space is limited by the existing …

The distant projection of high-peak and average-power laser beams in the atmosphere is a
long-standing goal with a wide range of applications. Our early proof-of-principle …

The diffraction-compensated propagation of high-power laser beams in air could open up
new opportunities for atmospheric applications such as remote stand-off detection, long …

Mid-infrared ultrashort high energy laser sources are opening up new opportunities in
science, including keV-class high harmonic generation and monoenergetic MeV-class …

The generation of power-and wavelength-scalable few optical cycle pulses remains one of
the major challenges in modern laser physics. Over the past decade, the development of …

Filamentation of ultra-short TW-class lasers recently opened new perspectives in
atmospheric research. Laser filaments are self-sustained light structures of 0.1–1 mm in …

Nonlinear light conversion involves one or more bound–bound, bound–free, free–free, and
free–bound transitions. It is often challenging to interpret the exact conversion mechanisms …

Atmospheric clearness is a key issue for free space optical communications (FSO). We
present an active method to achieve FSO through clouds and fog, using ultrashort high …