MIT presents an ultrafast holiday offering
Most days, MIT chemist Keith Nelson and his team do cutting-edge research with femtosecond laser pulses—flashes of light that last about a thousandth-of-a-trillionth (10-15) of a second, or roughly the amount of time it takes a light beam to cross from one circuit feature to the next in a conventional computer chip.
And most days, the scientists are focused on the serious, long-term applications of their work, which include a variety of potential uses in fundamental science, as well as in communications and signal-processing technologies.