  Over the last few years, tremendous progress has been gained in the
generation and application of ultrashort radiation pulses. Recently,
free-electron lasers generating ultrashort pulses with high peak power from the
extreme ultraviolet (EUV) to the soft-X-ray region are opening a wide range of
new scientific opportunities. Taking advantage of this short timescale permits
probing ultrafast, out-of-equilibrium dynamics, and the high intensities are
key for nonlinear optics. The core structure of the extremely important light
elements carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen can be accessed by soft-X-ray wavelengths
by providing chemical sensitivity. Externally seeded free electron lasers
generate coherent pulses with the ability to be synchronized with femtosecond
accuracy. In this contribution, we present new achievements in the generation
of coherent ultrashort pulses in the range of EUV to the soft X-ray in
externally seeded FELs. In particular, we present the recently successful
robust experiment at FERMI in Trieste, where few-femtosecond
extreme-ultraviolet pulses were generated and characterized in terms of energy,
and duration via autocorrelation.
