Ultrashort pulses…
High Q Laser is a world leading supplier of all-dioded-pumped solid-state

ultrafast lasers. Laser pulses with a duration of femtoseconds or picoseconds are refered as ultrafast where

1 femto second (fs) = 10^-15 seconds.

Such pulses have a broadband optical spectrum and can be generated by mode-locking techniques.

To get an idea on how short femtoseconds are one can look on how far a photon travels in a certain time interval.

1 second

needs a photon to travel 7.5 times around the earth

230 femtoseconds

takes a photon to cross a human hair

Why to go ultrashort
Besides the wavelength, the pulse duration of the laser is the main parameter influencing the nature of laser-material coupling. The high peak intensities provided by ultrashort pulses initiate multiphoton absorption mechanisms, bridging a band gap much larger than the photon energy. Thus, by applying ultrashort pulses the excitationablation of nearly any material is possible by multiphoton absorption. In addition the ablation process happens on time scales so short that no significant thermal diffusion can take place enabling laser structuring with highest precision.