Mono-Cycle Photonics and Optical Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Book excerpt: Deals with both the ultrashort laser-pulse technology in the few- to mono-cycle region and the laser-surface-controlled scanning-tunneling microscopy (STM) extending into the spatiotemporal extreme technology. The former covers the theory of nonlinear pulse propagation beyond the slowly-varing-envelope approximation, the generation and active chirp compensation of ultrabroadband optical pulses, the amplitude and phase characterization of few- to mono-cycle pulses, and the feedback field control for the mono-cycle-like pulse generation. In addition, the wavelength-multiplex shaping of ultrabroadband pulses, and the carrier-phase measurement and control of few-cycle pulses are described. The latter covers the CW-laser-excitation STM, the femtosecond-time-resolved STM and atomic-level surface phenomena controlled by femtosecond pulses.