Retracing some key landmarks in the ultrafast world

About 50 years ago mode-locking of lasers was discovered enabling the generation of ultrashort laser pulses, that is, pulses too short to be resolved by conventional photoelectric detectors. This was followed by rapid progress in laser pulse technology. A growing variety of sources and systems provided ever shorter pulses, extremely high peak intensity and spectral coverage all the way from the infrared to the hard X-ray regime. These developments were accompanied by increasingly sophisticated applications in science and technology. This talk aims to present a glimpse of the progress and the status of this field.