The first 50 years of the laser and the next 50

Physicists will have a defining role to play in the next 50 years of the
laser.
http://optics.org/cws/m/1733/27718/article/research/42689

May 24, 2010

The first 50 years of the laser – and the next 50

Physicists will have a defining role to play in the next 50 years of the laser.

It was on 16 May 1960 that Theodore Maiman – then a 32-year-old engineer-

turned-physicist at Hughes Research Laboratories in the US – eked out the first
pulses of light from a pink-ruby crystal. Since then the laser has become a
workhorse of physics and ingrained in everyday life.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the invention of the laser,

physicsworld.com is offering a free PDF download of the May special issue of
Physics World magazine (The Laser at 50). You can download the issue by
following this link.

If that's not enough, you can also visit the physicsworld.com multimedia
channel for a series of exclusive video interviews exploring how lasers are
shaping different areas of science and technology:

• above, Tom Baer of the Stanford Photonics Research Center reviews 50

years of laser physics, and makes some predictions about the next 50;
• Tom Hausken of the market-research firm Strategies Unlimited
discusses how lasers are used in optical communications;
• medical physicist Brian Pogue of Dartmouth College describes laser-
based cancer treatments and the rewards of working with lasers in an
interdisciplinary field;
• Andreas Tünnermann explains how researchers at the Fraunhofer
Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering are developing fibre
lasers for use in manufacturing;
• Narasimha Prasad of NASA's Langley Research Center talks about using
space-based lasers to gather data about the climate on Earth – and perhaps
beyond.

All of the interviews were filmed during SPIE's 2010 Photonics West conference,
which saw nearly 20,000 photonics scientists and engineers from all over the
world gather in San Francisco to share their latest results.

Maiman's laser shines again

Original laser fires one more time as SPIE joins in laser 50th anniversary
celebrations.

Maiman's pride

Laser technology was celebrated with a rare firing of the first working laser at
a conference in Vancouver, Canada, last weekend honouring its inventor,
Theodore Maiman, along with other observances of the technology's golden
anniversary.

At Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Vancouver, Dan Gelbart, a University of

British Columbia professor and inventor, had the honour of activating the ruby
laser that Maiman built 50 years ago at Hughes Research Labs in Malibu,
California. The invention was the first demonstration of an idea about the
absorption and emission of radiation that Albert Einstein characterized as a
"splendid light" when he envisioned it in 1916.

Anticipation

An international panel of speakers, including SPIE's CEO Eugene Arthurs, paid

tribute to Maiman's vision and perseverance. Maiman's wife, Kathleen, helped
to organize the conference at SFU, where he taught before his death in 2007.

Speakers noted that the first laser was greeted with mixed understanding, with
references such as "death ray" appearing in popular press reports and its
characterization as "a solution in search of a problem". But an avalanche of
applications in healthcare, security, entertainment and numerous other areas
followed. Edward Moses of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence
Livermore (California) National Laboratory noted that, just three days after the
announcement of Maiman's laser, John Nuckolls proposed using the laser to
create fusion. The powerful laser array at NIF is now working on creating a
clean energy source using fusion.
 Marking the (red) spot

A weekend ceremony for staff and their families at the Hughes California
facility, now HRL Labs, marked the designation of the location as a Physics
Historic Site by the American Physical Society. There, on 16 May 1960, Maiman
and his colleagues Irnee D'Haenens and Charles Asawa first powered up the
device, comprised of a rod of synthetic ruby crystal with reflectors at each end
surrounded by a three-loop flash lamp. A commemorative plaque installed at
the facility called Maiman's laser "the harbinger of a technological revolution
that has forever changed the world."

A LaserFest symposium in San Jose, California, convened laser pioneers and

other experts for the "Retrospectives on the invention of the laser" session on
Sunday at CLEO/QELS. LaserFest is a collaborative celebration among
supported by more than 60 partner and sponsor organizations. Founding
partners are SPIE, the IEEE Photonics Society, the American Physical Society
and the Optical Society. SPIE is also celebrating laser technology through its
Advancing the Laser: 50 Years and Into the Future tribute.

Speakers

Speakers included Charles Townes, who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in
1964 with Nikolay Basov and Aleksandr Prokhorov for work on the maser, which
preceded development of the laser. Townes described the rapid evolution of
the technology and multiple related "accidental" discoveries. "Maiman made
the first one, we made the first continuously operating laser, and then one
after another new devices were demonstrated," Townes said. "I am amazed and
impressed how people can add ideas and bring new ideas from other fields."

A large historical laser display originally organized by SPIE for Photonics West
last January will be shown in conjunction with the LaserFest symposium in San
Jose this week. It will be shown again at SPIE Optics + Photonics in San Diego,
California, during the first week of August, and can be seen online in a virtual
laser museum.