Over the past five years, there has been an enormous increase in the inter est in and understanding of electronic and optoelectronic devices operating in the picosecond (multigigahertz) range. This has been fueled in a sig nificant way by the spectacular advances in picosecond laser technology, electro optic sampling, III-V devices, and wideband fiber optic systems. Partly to address these advances, a new conference jointly sponsored by the IEEE Lasers and Electrooptics Society (IEEE (LEOS)) and the Op tical Society of America (OSA) was founded and its first meeting held in March 1985. The purpose of this meeting was to bring together work ers in the areas of electronics and optoelectronics who share a common interest in the physics and technology of picosecond solid-state electronic and optoelectronic devices, their multigigahertz applications, and ultrafast measurement techniques. Emphasis was placed on the interdisciplinary as pects of these areas, since each area is covered by its own topical meeting. This meeting was quite successful and led to a second meeting, of which this volume forms the proceedings.
