The recent developement of high power lasers, delivering femtosecond pulses of 20 2 intensities up to 10 W/cm, has led to the discovery of new phenomena in laser interactions with matter. At these enormous laser intensities, atoms, and molecules are exposed to extreme conditions and new phenomena occur, such as the very rapid multi photon ionization of atomic systems, the emission by these systems of very high order harmonics of the exciting laser light, the Coulomb explosion of molecules, and the acceleration of electrons close to the velocity of light. These phenomena generate new behaviour...

The recent developement of high power lasers, delivering femtosecond pulses of 20 2 intensities up to 10 W/cm, has led to the discovery of new phenomena in laser interactions with matter. At these enormous laser intensities, atoms, and molecules are exposed to extreme conditions and new phenomena occur, such as the very rapid multi photon ionization of atomic systems, the emission by these systems of very high order harmonics of the exciting laser light, the Coulomb explosion of molecules, and the acceleration of electrons close to the velocity of light. These phenomena generate new behaviour...