People in Laser History
Early Founders of Lasers
Robert H. Dicke
In 1956, Dicke filed a patent titled "Molecular Amplification Generation Systems and Methods" with claims of how to build an infrared laser and the use of an open resonator (awarded Sept. 9, 1958). Unfortunately, this patent had no effect on the development of the laser due to lack of publicity.
Gordon Gould
In 1957, Gould recorded the use of an optical or Fabry-Perot cavity (a device that uses mirrors to trap and isolate a single wavelength of light) in his lab notebook. Optical cavities are instrumental in making laser light. In addition, Gould was the first to publicly use the term laser, "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission." in 1959. Gould filed a laser patent in April 1959, but it was not awarded until 1977.
Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow
Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow are credited with developing the first maser, the precursor to the laser, in 1953. They quickly realized that the wavelengths of infrared and visible light would be more powerful than the microwaves of the maser. In 1957, they found the solution to making an optical cavity by aligning two highly reflecting mirrors parallel to each other and placing the amplifying medium in-between.
While no actual laser had been made, they applied for a patent on July 30, 1958, with the relevant physics described in a paper titled "Infrared and Optical Masers" sent to the Physical Review in August 1958. Townes and Schawlow were awarded an optical maser patent in 1960. In 1964, Charles Townes and Alexander Prokhorov and Nikolay Basov shared a Nobel Prize for their contributions to the development of lasers. Arthur Schawlow later won a Nobel Prize in 1981, which was shared with Bloembergen and Siegbahn.
Alexsandr M. Prokhorov and Nikolay Basov
Alexsandr M. Prokhorov and Nikolay Basov had been developing a maser in Russia at the same time as Townes and Schawlow. They described their concept in the October 1954 issue of the Russian journal JETP (Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics). In June of 1958, Prokhorov published a brief proposal for a maser operating in the optical spectrum, with the light reflected back and forth between a pair of mirrors. They shared a Nobel Prize for their contributions to the development of lasers in 1964, along with Charles Townes.
Theodore Maiman
Maiman built the first working laser at Hughes Research Labs in 1960. He was the first to correctly realize that rapid pulses of light could excite atoms in a ruby by optical pumping with commercial flash lamps. This laser was so easy to build that within weeks several other groups duplicated the achievement.
Faces in Laser Science
http://laserfest.org/lasers/pioneers/index.cfm
Nobel Laureates
1964: Alexsandr M. Prokhorov, Charles H. Townes, and Nicolay G. Basov
Townes, Basov and Prokhorov's fundamental work in quantum electronics and laser theory lead to the construction of the first operating laser by Theodore Maiman in 1960. Everyday technologies like CD players and laser pointers are firmly rooted in their work.
1971: Dennis Gabor
Gabor developed the theory of holography in the late 1940's. One of the most recognizable applications of laser technology, early holograms were limited in depth, as there was no source of highly coherent light at the time. Holography research benefited greatly from the invention of the laser, with its high coherency.
1981: Nicolaas Bloembergen and Arthur L. Schawlow
Bloembergen and Schawlow contributed significantly to the development of laser spectroscopy and non-linear optical effects, including "mixing" one light beam with another and permanently joining several laser beams. These phenomena are seen in optical fibers and are a characteristic of future optical computers.
1989: Norman F. Ramsey
Ramsey's development of the resonance method and the hydrogen maser laid the groundwork for the cesium atomic clock, our current time standard. A hydrogen maser is a type of atomic clock that operates at the resonance frequency of the hydrogen atom.
1997: Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, and William D. Phillips
Chu, Cohen-Tannoudji, and Phillips developed the method known as laser cooling, where atoms are trapped and cooled to very low temperatures with laser light. Laser cooling has enabled scientists to study the fundamental nature of atoms.
2001: Eric A. Cornell, Wolfgang Ketterle, and Carl E. Wieman
Cornell, Ketterle, and Wieman used laser cooling (along with evaporative cooling) to achieve an extreme state of matter known as Bose-Einstein condensation, by chilling atomic gases to temperatures around one microkelvin-while preventing the atoms from condensing into a solid or a liquid.
2005: John L. Hall and Theodor W. Hänsch
Hall and Hänsch developed laser-based precision spectroscopy, most notably the optical frequency comb technique. A frequency comb uses ultrafast lasers to measure the different colors or frequencies of light with extreme precision. Frequency combs are paving the way towards building extremely accurate optical atomic clocks.
2006: John C. Mather and George F. Smoot
Mathers and Smoot used the masers aboard NASA's COBE satellite to measure the cosmic microwave background radiation- a picture of the blackbody radiation leftover from the big bang. Subtle temperature variations within the radiation offer clues as to how the first galaxies formed.
In Chemistry
1999: Ahmed Zewail
Zewail successfully used a rapid laser technique called femtosecond spectroscopy to observe how atoms in a molecule move during a chemical reaction. In femtosecond spectroscopy, a pump-probe experiment "photographs" chemical reactions as they happen, using an ultrafast laser as "flash".
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