Note: Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents in Brief -- Table of Contents -- Setting the Stage and Modus Operandi: "The Making of the Book" -- Preface -- Authors -- I Fundamentals -- 1 Time scales -- 1.1 Units of time and relation between energy and time -- 1.2 Time axis -- 1.3 How to describe events in space-time coordinates -- 1.4 Time scale in the hydrogen atom -- 1.5 Time scale for photoisomerization -- 1.6 Summary -- 1.7 Exercises -- 2 Ultrafast phenomena: Experimental -- 2.1 Introduction to the laser and how it works -- 2.1.1 Standing waves -- 2.1.2 Cavity -- 2.1.3 Stimulated emission and single wavelength selection -- 2.2 Short summary of nonlinear optics under cw laser excitation -- 2.3 Magneto-optics -- 2.4 Development of ultrafast lasers: Major breakthrough with the Ti-Sapphire laser -- 2.4.1 Phase alignment and mode-locking -- 2.4.2 Necessity of many modes and broad bandwidth -- 2.4.3 Emergence of ultrafast pulses from mode-locking -- 2.5 How to access the ultrafast time scale -- 2.6 Time-resolved pump-probe experiments -- 2.6.1 Basic principles -- 2.6.2 Nitty-gritties and theory behind the processes -- 2.7 Photoisomerization in bacteriorhodopsin -- 2.8 Femtochemistry -- 2.9 Metals, semiconductors and superconductors -- 2.10 Femtomagnetism -- 2.11 High-order harmonic generation and attosecond physics -- 2.12 Exercises -- 3 Theoretical background -- 3.1 Density functional theory -- 3.1.1 Hohenberg-Kohn theorem -- 3.1.2 Kohn-Sham equation -- 3.2 Time-dependent density functional theory -- 3.2.1 Solving the Kohn-Sham equation -- 3.2.2 Example: Many-electron atoms -- 3.2.3 Adiabatic approximation -- 3.2.4 Example: TDDFT of atoms in a linearly-polarized field -- 3.3 Quantum chemistry tools -- 3.3.1 Basis functions -- 3.3.2 Hartree-Fock approximation -- 3.3.3 Configuration interaction method. , 3.3.4 Coupled-cluster method -- 3.4 Solid state physics: Essentials -- 3.4.1 Crystal structure = Bravais lattice + basis -- 3.4.2 Band structure: How electronic energy disperses with crystal momentum -- 3.5 Two special features in ultrafast dynamics -- 3.5.1 Spin-orbit coupling -- 3.5.2 Interaction between laser radiation and matter -- 3.5.3 Further notes on the vector potential -- 3.6 Rotation matrices for spins -- 3.7 Software packages -- 3.8 Exercises -- II Applications -- 4 High-harmonic generation -- 4.1 Brief history and key features of high-harmonic generation -- 4.2 Working principles of HHG -- 4.2.1 Laser electric field strength and Coulomb potential in an atom -- 4.2.2 Escaping the Coulomb potential -- 4.2.3 Ponderomotive energy -- 4.2.4 Corkum's theory: Origin of the cutoff energy of Ip + 3.17Up -- 4.3 Applications -- 4.3.1 Applications to hydrogen and neon atoms -- 4.3.2 Applications to C60 -- 4.3.2.1 Model -- 4.3.2.2 Time-dependent Liouville equation -- 4.3.2.3 Power spectrum -- 4.4 Experimental demonstration of high-harmonic generation in C60 -- 4.5 High-harmonic generation in solids -- 4.5.1 Graphene -- 4.5.2 Going to magnets -- 4.5.3 Simple picture of HHG in solids -- 4.6 Exercises -- 5 Femtomagnetism -- 5.1 History of femtomagnetism -- 5.2 Magnetic materials -- 5.2.1 General properties -- 5.2.2 Element ferromagnets and microscopic interactions -- 5.3 Time scale of laser-induced demagnetization -- 5.3.1 Time scale for electron response -- 5.3.2 Time scale for spin response -- 5.3.3 Time scale of phonon excitation -- 5.3.4 Demagnetization time -- 5.4 Sample experimental results -- 5.4.1 Fe, Ni and permalloy -- 5.4.2 Half-metallic and Heusler compounds -- 5.4.3 Short experimental summary -- 5.5 Mechanisms still under debate -- 5.5.1 Spin-orbit coupling model -- 5.5.2 Hubbard model -- 5.5.3 Heisenberg model. , 5.5.4 Time-dependent Liouville density functional theory -- 5.5.5 Time-dependent magneto-optics theory -- 5.6 Exercises -- 6 All-optical spin switching -- 6.1 Basic optics -- 6.2 Background -- 6.2.1 Ferrimagnets and magneto-optical recording -- 6.2.2 Experimental discovery -- 6.3 Key ingredients of all-optical spin switching -- 6.3.1 Composition and compensation temperature -- 6.3.2 Laser parameters -- 6.3.3 New materials -- 6.4 Theory -- 6.4.1 Birth of the first single spin switching model -- 6.4.2 Numerical solutions and MatLab codes -- 6.4.3 Reversing millions of spins -- 6.4.4 Importance of spin moments -- 6.5 Exercises -- 7 Spin manipulations in magnetic nanostructures -- 7.1 Computer memory and magnetic storage -- 7.1.1 Giant magneto-resistance -- 7.1.2 Magneto-optical recording technology -- 7.1.3 Emergence of ultrafast demagnetization -- 7.2 Experimental discovery -- 7.2.1 Experiments in permalloy -- 7.2.2 Coherent spin manipulation in NiO -- 7.3 Spin precession -- 7.4 Rabi oscillation -- 7.5 Spin-orbit coupling in an atom -- 7.6 Magnetic resonance in NiO clusters -- 7.7 Exercises -- 8 Magnetic molecules and magnetic logic -- 8.1 Λ processes in molecular systems -- 8.1.1 Degenerate case -- 8.1.2 Chirped lasers -- 8.1.3 Spectral broadening of the laser pulse -- 8.2 A closer look into electronic correlations -- 8.2.1 Correlations and interatomic distances -- 8.2.2 Correlations and ultrafast spin dynamics -- 8.3 Molecular vibrations -- 8.3.1 Electron-vibron coupling -- 8.3.2 Molecular vibrations and spin dynamics -- 8.3.3 Geometry change as a tool: Mechanical strain -- 8.4 Magnetic logic on molecules -- 8.4.1 How many magnetic centers do we need? -- 8.4.2 The Ni3Na2 paradigm -- 8.4.3 Elementary laser-induced processes -- 8.4.4 Spin transferability -- 8.4.5 Mapping quantum dynamics onto classical trajectories -- 8.4.6 Higher multiplicities. , 8.4.7 More complicated M and nonlinear M processes -- 8.5 First steps towards magnetic logic gates -- 8.5.1 Boolean logic on Ni3Na2: NAND gate -- 8.5.2 ERASE functionality -- 8.5.2.1 Laser chirp -- 8.5.2.2 Quantum interferences -- 8.5.3 Charge-spin gearbox -- 8.6 Concluding remarks -- 8.7 Exercises -- Appendix A Appendices -- A.1 KLI approximation -- A.2 LDA: local density approximation -- A.3 Self-interaction corrected LDA -- A.4 BLYP approximation -- A.5 Electric dipole, magnetic-dipole and other higher-order interactions -- A.6 Code to generate ultrafast pulses -- A.7 Code to generate figures in HHG -- A.8 Code to compute the cutoff energy in HHG -- A.9 Code to compute the C60 structure -- A.10 Genetic algorithm example -- A.11 Special crystal momentum points and lines -- Bibliography -- Index.