The motivating idea of the first Topical Meeting on Picosecond Phenomena, which took place at Hilton Head Island in 1978, was to bring together scien­ tists and engineers in a congenial setting who were developing picosecond lasers with those who were applying them to problems in chemistry, physics, electronics, and biology. The field has advanced remarkably in the following six years. This is reflected in the size of the conference which has more than doubled in the past six years and now includes scientists from many countries around the world. As evidenced by the papers in this volume, the appl ication of ultrafast 1 ight pulses continues to grow in new and diverse directions encompassing an increasingly wide range of subject areas. This progress has gone hand-in-hand with the development of new and more precise methods of generating and measuring ultrafast light pulses, which now extend well into the femtosecond time domain. It was this latter advance which was responsible for changing the name of the conference to Ultrafast Phenomena. The 1984 meeting was held at the Monterey Conference Center in Monterey, Cal ifornia from June 11 to 15 under the sponsorship of the Optical Society of America. A total of 320 registered participants, including 65 students, attended the three and one-half day conference. The overall enthusiasm of the participants, the high quality of the research presented, and ambiance of the setting combined to produce a successful and enjoyable conference.

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I Generation and Measurement Techniques.- The Soliton Laser.- Soliton Shaping Mechanisms in Passively Mode-Locked Lasers and Negative Group Velocity Dispersion Using Refraction.- Compression and Shaping of Femtosecond Pulses.- Generation of 0.41-Picosecond Pulses by the Single-Stage Compression of Frequency Doubled Nd:YAG Laser Pulses.- Compression of Mode-Locked Nd:YAG Pulses to 1.8 Picoseconds.- Effects of Cavity Dispersion on Femtosecond Mode-Locked Dye Lasers.- 3 MHz Amplifier for Femtosecond Optical Pulses.- Colliding Pulse Femtosecond Lasers and Applications to the Measurement of Optical Parameters.- High Average Power Mode-Locked Co:MgF2 Laser.- High Power Picosecond Pulses in the Infrared.- Stimulated VUV Radiation from HD Excited by a Picosecond ArF* Laser.- Procedure for Calculating Optical Pulse Compression from Fiber-Grating Combinations.- Generation of Infrared Picosecond Pulses Between 1.2µm and 1.8µm Using a Traveling Wave Dye Laser.- A New Picosecond Source in the Vibrational Infrared.- Generation of Intense, Tunable Ultrahort Pulses in the Ultraviolet Using a Single Escimer Pump Laser.- Travelling Wave Pumped Ultrashort Pulse Distributed Feedback Dye Laser.- Picosecond Pulses from Future Synchrotron-Radiation Sources.- High Repetition Rate Production of Picosecond Pulses at Wavelength Eastman #5 Saturable Dye.- Limits to Pulse Advance and Delay in Actively Modelocked Lasers.- Novel Method of Waveform Evaluation of Ultrashort Optical Pulses.- Noise in Picosecond Laser Systems: Actively Mode Locked CW Nd3+:YAG and Ar+ Lasers Synchronously Pumping Dye Lasers.- High Power, Picosecond Phase Coherent Pulse Sequences by Injection Locking.- Passive Mode-Locking with Reverse Saturable Absorption.- II Solid State Physics and Nonlinear Optics.- Imaging with Femtosecond Optical Pulses.- Femtosecond Multiphoton Photoelectron Emission from Metals.- Time-Resolved Laser-Induced Phase Transformation in Aluminum.- Picosecond Photoemission Studies of Laser-Induced Phase Transitions in Silicon.- Dynamics of Dense Electron-Hole Plasma and Heating of Silicon Lattice Under Picosecond Laser Irradiation.- Dynamics of the Mott Transition in CuCI with Subpicosecond Time Resolution.- Picosecond Dynamics of Hot Dense Electron-Hole Plasmas in Crystalline and Amorphized Si and GaAs.- Picosecond Optical Excitation of Phonons in Amorphous As2Te3.- Femtosecond Studies of Intraband Relaxation of Semiconductors and Molecules.- Picosecond Laser Studies of Noneqilibrium Electron Heating in Copper.- Picosecond Measurement of Hot Carrier Luminescence in In0.53Ga0.47As.- Picosecond Carrier Dynamics in Semiconductors.- Picosecond Dephasing and Energy Relaxation of Excitons in Semiconductors.- Femtosecond Dynamics of Nonequilibrium Correlated Electron-Hole Pair Distributions in Room-Temperature GaAs Multiple Quantum Well Structures.- Femtosecond Transient Anisotropy in the Absorption Saturation of GaAs.- Holographic Interferometry Using Twenty-Picosecond UV Pulses to Obtain Time Resolved Hydro Measurements of Selenium and Gold Plasmas.- Temporal Development of Absorption Spectra in Alkali Halide Crystals Subsequent to Band-Gap Excitation.- Kinetics of Free and Bound Excitons in Semiconductors.- Determination of Surface Recombination Velocities for CdS Crystals Immersed in Electrolyte Solutions by a Picosecond Photoluminescence Technique.- Pulsewidth Dependence of Various Bulk Phase Transitions and Morphological Changes of Crystalline Silicon Irradiated by 1 Micron Picosecond Pulses.- Subthreshold Picosecond Laser Damage in Silicon Associated with Charge Emission.- Third-Order Nonlinear Susceptibilities of Dye Solutions Determined by Non-Phasematched Third Harmonic Generation.- Excitation Transport and Trapping in a Two-Dimensional Disordered System: Cresyl Violet on Quartz.- Temporal Dependence of Third-Order Non-Linear Optical Susceptibilities of Fused Quartz and Liquid CCl4.- High Excitation Electron Dynamics in GaInAsP.- Picosecond Nonlinear-Optical Limiting in Silicon.- Nonlinear Absorption and Nonlinear Refraction Studies in MEBBA.- High Density Carrier Generation in Indium Antimonide.- Measurement of Two-Photon Cross-Section in DABCO with the Use of Picosecond Pulses.- III Coherent Pulse Propagation.- Coherence Effects in Pump-Probe Measurements with Collinear, Copropagating Beams.- Observation of the 0? Pulse.- Picosecond Two-Color Photon Echoes in Doped Molecular Solids.- Subpicosecond Accumulated Photon Echoes with Incoherent Light in Nd3+-Doped Silicate Glass.- Femtosecond Dephasing Measurements Using Transient Induced Gratings.- Picosecond Pulse Multiphoton Coherent Propagation in Vapors.- Stimulated Photon Echo for Elastic and Depolarizing Collison Studies.- Coherent Transient Spectroscopy with Ultra-High Time Resolution Using Incoherent Light.- IV Stimulated Scattering.- Interaction-Induced, Subpicosecond Phenomena in Liquids.- Transient Infrared Spectroscopy on the Picosecond and Sub-Picosecond Time Scale.- Quantum Fluctuations in Picosecond Transient Stimulated Raman Scattering.- Transient Coherent Raman Spectroscopy: Two Novel Ways of Line Narrowing.- Picosecond Transient Raman Spectroscopy: The Excited State Structure of Diphenylpolyenes.- Time-Resolved Nonlinear Spectroscopy of Vibrational Overtones and Two-Phonon States.- Direct Picosecond Determination of the Character of Virbrational Line Broadening in Liquids.- Picosecond Time-Domain Coherent Active Raman Spectroscopy of Free Nitrogen Jet.- V Transient Laser Photochemistry.- Picosecond Chemistry of Collisionless Molecules in Supersonic Beams.- Energy Transfer in Picosecond Laser Generated Compressional Shock Waves.- The Role of A and A' States in the Geminate Recombination of Molecular Iodine.- Molecular Dynamics of I2 Photodissociation in Cyclohexane: Experimental Picosecond Transient Electronic Absorption.- Iodine Photodissociation in Solution: New Transient Absorptions.- Photodissociation of Triarylmethanes.- Femtosecond Time Resolved Multiphoton Ionization: Techniques and Applications.- Threshold Ionization in Liquids.- Picosecond Multiphoton Laser Photolysis and Spectroscopy of Liquid Benzenes.- Chemical Reactions in Condensed Media.- Subpicosecond and Picosecond Time Resolved Laser Photoionization of Phenothiazine in Micellar Models.- Isomerization Intermediates in the Photochemistry of Stilbenes.- VI Molecular Energy Redistribution, Transfer, and Relaxation.- Picosecond Laser Studies on the Effect o…