ABSTRACT
This chapter considers why femtosecond lasers led to the Chemistry Nobel Prize, a distinction that was not given when nanosecond or picosecond lasers were first used to study chemical reactions. Measuring events with the pump-probe method takes advantage of the fact that the speed of light is a constant when transmitting in vacuum and that constant does not vary substantially in air. Lasers producing femtosecond laser pulses were first developed in the 1980s. Femtosecond laser pulses have had a very significant impact on how we now view chemical reactions. Bond breaking and bond formation are no longer considered instantaneous processes. Similarly, femtosecond pulses have also made significant impacts in related sciences such as biochemistry, biology, and physics. Scientific curiosity keeps taking advantage of femtosecond lasers, finding new applications and using these tools for solving new problems.
