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Experimental advances now allow application of pulsed unidirectional electric fields, termed half-cycle pulses (HCPs), to Rydberg atoms whose characteristic times are much less that the classical electron orbital period. In this limit, each HCP simply delivers an impulsive momentum transfer or "kick" to the excited electron. A number of protocals for controlling Rydberg atom wavepackets using a carefully tailored sequence of HCPs will be described with emphasis on the production of quasi one-dimensional and near circular Rydberg states, and on navigating electron wavepackets in phase space through careful loading of stable islands whose positions are subsequently moved and shapes "morphed" adiabatically. Insights provided by this work into classical-quantum correspondence, quantum control and manipulation, and the behavior of driven systems will be discussed. |