Recent advances in the field of subpicosecond light pulse aeneration and amplification have opened the way to a variety of new optical devices and applications. A new type of Kerr shutter responding with a speed limited by our laser pulses (300 femtoseconds) and an opening dynamics of 104 has been developed. This new component is expected to lead to more accurate results for time resolved luminescence but also for medical spectrotomography. The technique of photoconductive switching to drive in the averaqing mode a streak camera with subpicosecond pulses has been tested. Our subpicosecond laser has also been used to trigger photoconductive switches driving a dipole antenna producing a burst of microwave of duration of 3 psec.