30, 20, and 10 Years Ago in OPN

“The technology for producing femtosecond optical pulses was first realized in 1981 and improved to produce pulse durations as short as 6 fs by the end of the decade. In addition to the rapid reduction in pulse duration and close approach to the fundamental limits on optical pulse duration, the pulses were produced in highly stable pulse trains at repetition rates as large as 10 kHz … This work culminates some 25 years of progress that has resulted in reducing the duration of optical pulses by a factor of more than 100,000.”