This volume contains papers presented at the Eleventh International Conference on Ultrafast Phenomena held at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, from July 12 to 17, 1998. The biannual Ultrafast Phenomena Conferences provide a forum for dis­ cussion of the latest advances in ultrafast optics and their applications in science and engineering. The Garmisch conference brought together a multidisciplinary group of 440 participants from 27 countries, including 127 students. The enthu­ siasm of this large number of Participants, the high quality of the papers they presented and the magnificent conference site resulted in a successful and pleasant conference. Progress was reported in the technology of generating ultrashort pulses, in­ cluding new techniques for improving laser-pulse duration, tunability over broad wavelength ranges, output power and peak intensity. Ultrafast spectroscopy con­ tinues to provide new insight into fundamental processes in physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. In addition to analyzing ultrafast phenomena, control of ultrafast dynamics now represents an important topic. Ultrafast concepts and tech­ niques are being applied in imaging and microscopy, high speed optoelectronics, mat~rial diagnostics and processing, reflecting the maturing of the field. Acknowledgements. Many people contributed to the success of the conference.

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I: Lasers for Ultrashort Pulses.- Sub-5 fs Pulses: Generation, Characterization and Experiments.- Generation of Intense Diffraction-Limited White Light and 4-fs Pulses.- Broadband Operation of a Ti:Sapphire Laser Using Novel Double-Chirped Mirrors and Semiconductor Saturable Absorbers.- Improved Broadband Double-Chirped Mirrors with Controlled Dispersion Characteristics.- A New Type of Saturable Bragg Reflector with Record-Low Saturation Fluence and Broad Tuning Range.- Time-Resolved Measurement of Electronic and Vibrational Nonlinear Refraction in Ti:Sapphire and Cr:LiSGaF.- Generation of Amplified Shaped Pulses for Highly Adiabatic Excitation.- Transient Excited-State Absorption Measurement in Chromium Doped Forsterite.- Ultrafast Fiber Lasers.- First Experimental Observation of Polarization Locked Temporal Vector Solitons.- Time-Domain Jitter Measurement of Modelocked Fiber Lasers.- 0.28 TW Laser System at 1 kHz, Scaleable to 2 TW at 1 kHz.- Generation of 100 TW, Sub-20 fs Pulses at a 10-Hz Repetition Rate in Ti:Sapphire.- II: Nonlinear Frequency Conversion and Pulse Shaping.- Ultra-Broadband Optical Parametric Amplifiers in the Visible and in the Near-Infrared.- Sub-5-fs Pulse Generation by Pulse-Front-Matched Optical Parametric Amplication.- Tunable Visible and NIR Parametric Amplifiers at 1 kHz and Pulse Lengths Down to 10 fs.- Parametric Chirped Pulse Microamplifier Based on Engineerable Quasi-Phase-Matched LiNbO3.- High Repetition Rate Mid-Infrared Femtosecond Optical Parametric Oscillator.- Generation of High Repetition Rate Femtosecond Infrared Pulses Tunable from 9 to 18 µm.- A Proof of Principle Experiment of Sum Frequency Generation Using Chirped Pulses.- A Novel Scheme for High-Intensity Ultrashort Pulse Generation.- Self-Focusing in Waveguides.- Observation of Raman Self-Conversion of fs-Pulse Frequency due to Impulsive Excitation of Molecular Vibrations.- Spatio-Temporal Coherence Properties of Super-Continuum Single Filament in Bulk Media.- Second Harmonic Pulse Compression.- Adaptive Control of Pulse Phase in a Chirped Pulse Amplifier.- Wavefront Correction of High Intensity Femtosecond Lasers.- Spatiotemporal Imaging, Spatiotemporal Pulse Shaping, and Spatiotemporal Coherent Control.- III: Pulse Diagnostics, Measurement Techniques, Nonlinear Optics.- Infrared Streak Camera.- In-Situ Waveform Retrieval and Display of Femtosecond Optical Pulses and Picosecond Electrical Pulses.- Spectral Phase Interferometry for Direct Electric Field Reconstruction of Ultrashort Optical Pulses.- Spatial-Temporal Field Distribution of Self-Focused Femtosecond Pulses.- Pulse Characterization Techniques for sub-30 Femtosecond Terawatt Lasers.- Single-Shot Third-Order Correlator for Femtosecond Terawatt Ti:Sapphire Lasers.- Temporal Evolution of Selfguided Femtosecond Laser Pulses in the Presence of Kerr-Nonlinearity and Ionisation.- Femtosecond Lidar.- Superluminal Localized Waves in Femtosecond Optics.- Even-Order Nonlinear Interaction of Focused Femtosecond Beam with the Bulk of Chiral Media.- Complete Electric Field of Femtosecond Photon Echoes at Their Point of Origin.- Characterization of the Complex Third-Order Susceptibility of Myoglobin Using Diffractive Optics.- Time Domain Separation of the Nuclear and Electronic Contributions to the Third Order Nonlinearity in Glasses.- Multiple-Pulse Control and Bispectral 2D Raman Analysis of Nonlinear Lattice Dynamics.- Engineering Quantum Indistinguishability in Ultrafast Parametric Downconversion.- IV: Imaging and Microscopy.- Ultrafast Laser Technology Applied to Whole-Field Fluorescence Lifetime Changing.- Optical Coherence Tomography Using Femtosecond Lasers.- 3D-Microscopy Using Third-Harmonic Generation at Interfaces in Biological and Non-Biological Specimens.- Ultrafast STM-Tip Localized Responses from Nanostructured Surfaces.- Ultrafast Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Using a Photoexcited Low-Temperature-Grown GaAs Tip.- Photoconductive Sampling with a Scanning Tunneling Microscope.- Femtosecond Nonlinear Microscopy of Photoconductors.- Time-Resolved Near-Field Spectroscopy of the Carrier Dynamics in Single GaAs Nanostructures.- Time Resolved Near Field Imaging and Diffraction with Sub-Wavelength Far-Infrared Dipole Sources.- V: High Speed Optoelectronics and Thz Radiation.- Ultrafast All-Optical Signal Processing at Over 100 Gbit/s with Mode- Locked Semiconductor Diode Lasers.- Characterization of Interferometric Switching Devices for Ultrafast All-Optical Signal Processing.- Measurement of 1.4 THz Beat Frequencies from a Dual Wavelength Gain-Switched Laser Diode Using Frequency-Resolved Optical Gating.- Spectral Holography for Dynamic Dispersion Compensation.- Femtosecond Optical Pulse Generation from CW Laser Using Electrooptic Phase Modulator Featuring Lens Modulation.- Characterization of gt; 300 GHz Transistors Using a Novel Optoelectronic Network Analyzer.- Free-Space Electro-Optic of THz Radiation with Chirped Optical Beam.- Spectrum Control of Intense THz-Radiation from InAs under Magnetic Field Irradiated with Stretched Femtosecond Laser.- Dithered-Edge Sampling of Terahertz Pulses: Fast Detection Using Slow Photoconductive Receivers.- Driving Intersubband Transitions with THz Pulses.- VI: Coherence in Semiconductors.- Quantum Interference Control of Free Carriers in Semiconductors.- Optical Control of Precession of Mn2+ Moment in CdTe/Cd1?xMnxTe Quantum Wells.- Ultrafast Time-Resolved Quantum Beats in the Polarization State of Coherent Emission from Quantum Wells.- Femtosecond Coherent Response of Spin-Orbit Split-Off Excitons in InP.- Femtosecond Dynamics and Coherence Properties of Resonant Secondary Emission from Excitons in GaAs Quantum Wells.- Femtosecond Interferometric Measurements of Secondary Emission from Resonantly Excited Quantum Wells.- Quantum Coherence Dynamics of 2D-Exeitons.- Femtosecond Two Color Four-Wave Mixing Experiments on GaAs Quantum Wells Using Two Independently Tunable Lasers.- Temporal and Spectrial Characteristics of Radiatively Coupled Excitons in Multiple Quantum Wells.- Pulse Breakup Due to Coherent Self-Induced Transmission on a Free Exciton Resonance.- Excitonic Quantum Beating in Space- and Time-Resolved Pump and Probe Experiments.- Ultrafast Phase Relaxation of Confined Excitons in CuCol Nanocrystals: Non-Markovian Behaviors.- Study of Hexagonal GaN by Femtosecond Excitation Correlation Measurement and Degenerate Four-Wave-Mixing.- Evidence of Trion and Carrier Localization in Modulation Doped Quantum Wells by fs and ps FWM Studies.- Ultrafast Pump-Probe Signals at the Band Edge of …