Fs‐Lasers for Life Sciences

Femtosecond lasers had an unpredictable success in optical sciences ever since they were introduced. Today physicists are still pushing the limits of ultrafast lasers, e.g. the pulse duration down to a single optical cycle and the peak power up to tera or even peta watts. On the other hand, many promising applications have emerged outside the laser laboratories. Mainly the combination of high peak power and low average power make ultrafast lasers very attractive for life sciences. The high peak power enables scientists to take advantage of nonlinear effects while the low average power keeps the cell samples vital/alive. Therefore, it is now possible to gather new information about dynamic life processes that was not accessible before. The studies cover scales reaching from interaction of subcellular compartments up to the physiological reaction of an entire living organism. Some keywords of these applications are “non‐invasive”, “high 3D‐resolution”, “time‐resolved”, “marker‐free”, “contact‐free” and “high penetration depth” among many others.