Femtosecond lasers emit pulses of light that last just a millionth of a billionth of a second. These lasers enable surgery so precise that a single mitochondrion can be removed without harming the rest of the cell, and machining so controlled that structures can be micromachined within a piece of glass. Eric Mazur, a professor of applied physics at Harvard, likens these fast flashes to “bullets of light.”
A version of this article appeared in the April 2005 issue of Harvard Business Review.
