ti-sapphire lasers are important to several areas of physics. they can be tuned to a wide range of wavelengths and can have very short pulse widths, on the order of tens of femtoseconds. these lasers are called "ultrafast" lasers.

ultrafast lasers require a pump laser. so to get the ultrafast, very tuneable laser pulses you actually need two lasers, and you shoot one of the lasers into the other. you can also add non-linear optics for more control over the wavelength or high-energy amplifiers for more power. at the end, your laser is more like a system of glowing boxes that takes up a huge table. each one of these components is very expensive. they generate a lot of heat and usually require several water cooling systems. they all have to be perfectly aligned to one another, so they have to be on the same, level table, and that table shouldn't shake everytime a train or semi rolls by your lab and it has to have taps for the optical mounts to route the laser around the table and to your experiment.

if they could replace a bunch of that with a chip for some people it would free up grant money.