30, 20, and 10 Years Ago in OPN

“Ultrafast optical and opto­electronic phenomena continue to be highly prolific fields of fundamental and applied research. One of the prime driving forces for the ongoing growth is the seemingly unending appearance of new and exotic sources of ultrashort pulses and the concomitant proliferation of commercially available sources. Today, one can literally buy the proverbial ‘black-box’ with the attached label—‘femtosecond pulses exit here!’ Just when you thought the CPM (colliding pulse mode-locked) dye laser would be the last femtosecond laser oscillator, femtosecond solid-state lasers literally explode onto the scene.”