The power P_L of a laser beam is given by the energy W_L it delivers within a certain period of time T_L, that is P_L =W_L/T_L. The laser intensity, in turn can be calculated by dividing this power by the cross sectional area of the laser beam. By thight focusing, this can be made as small as the square of the wavelength, yielding for the maximum laser intensity: I_{\rm max} \approx P_L/\lambda_L^2\. The peak electric field can be determined from I_{\rm max} with the formula given in section the giant force of ultrashort-pulsed light. Whilst pulse energies are limited to a few Joules for table-top repetitive lasers, pulse powers, intensities, and corresponding electromagnetic fields grow inversely with pulse duration T_L and may access levels unprecedented in the laboratory. At MPQ, we pursue the development of the world’s first repetitive (10 shots/second) petawatt laser. The Petawatt Field Synthesizer (PFS) will approach a peak power of 1 Petawatt = 10^{15} W = 1,000,000,000,000,000 W and electric field strengths of several trillion V/cm by delivering energies of several joules in pulses of several-femtosecond duration. PFS, to be commissioned in 2010, will produce these pulses with a controlled waveform, making controlled electric and magnetic fields of unprecedented strength available for laboratory experiments. Its predecessor, LWS-10: Light Wave Synthesizer (photo) constitutes the world’s first sub-10-fs multi-terawatt laser. It delivers 80-mJ, 8-fs near-infrared few-cycle laser pulses