Progress in Ultra-short Electromagnetic Pulse Technology: A New Frontier in Physics

The subject of ultra-short electromagnetic pulses and their interaction with matter is attracting increasing interest in both science and technology. This is due to their potential use in revealing transient featues of physical phenomena and the probing of the particular electromagnetic and physical properties of all kinds of materials, and to progress the understanding of the photonic, electronic and magnetic behaviour of small-scale systems. Further, ultra-short laser pulses, producing high-density plasmas radiating at all wavelengths, can lead to the development of novel techniques to be used in physico-chemical investigation of biological and liquid media. Ultra-short electromagnetic wideband sources have numerous possible advanced applications, including: the creation and investigation of new drug and other medically significant molecular structures; investigation of energy processes in DNA structures; treatment of cancerous and genetic diseases; development of industrial materials used under high pressure; nuclear waste treatment and storage; fusion reactions; and fundamental cosmic problems. The information contained in the book represents the author’s work over 35 years, and the distillation of the the results of collaboration with research groups in Gesellshaft fur Strahlen und Umweltforschung in Germany and MIT and Harvard University in the USA.