Ultrafast Lasers in Medicine -- Ultrahigh-Resolution Optical Coherence Tomography Using Femtosecond Lasers -- Two-Photon Laser Scanning Microscopy -- Femtosecond Lasers in Ophthalmology: Surgery and Imaging -- Ultrafast Lasers in Biology -- Ultrafast Peptide and Protein Dynamics by Vibrational Spectroscopy -- Photosynthetic Light-Harvesting -- Primary Photosynthetic Energy Conversion in Bacterial Reaction Centers -- Ultrafast Primary Reactions in the Photosystems of Oxygen-Evolving Organisms -- Primary Photochemistry in the Photoactive Yellow Protein: The Prototype Xanthopsin -- Structure Based Kinetics by Time-Resolved X-ray Crystallography -- Primary Reactions in Retinal Proteins -- Ultrashort Laser Pulses in Single Molecule Spectroscopy.

Sources of ultrashort laser pulses are nowadays commercially available and have entered many areas of research and development. This book gives an overview of biological and medical applications of these laser pulses. The briefness of these laser pulses permits the tracing of the fastest processes in photo-active bio-systems, which is one focus of the book. The other focus is applications that rely on the high peak intensity of ultrashort laser pulses. Examples covered span non-linear imaging techniques, optical tomography, and laser surgery.