Skip to main content

07974

Society: SPIEMain Category: OpticsSub Category: Lasers & ElectroopticsEra: 1950-1959DateCreated: 1957600-700 Mountain AvenueMurray HillState: NJZip: 07974Country: USAWebsite: http://spie.org/Creator: Gould, Gordon , Bell Labs
As ideas developed, they abandoned infrared radiation to instead concentrate upon visible light. The concept originally was called an "optical maser". In 1958, Bell Labs filed a patent application for their proposed optical maser; and Schawlow and Townes submitted a manuscript of their theoretical calculations to the Physical Review, published that year in Volume 112, Issue No. 6. Simultaneously, at Columbia University, graduate student Gordon Gould was working on a doctoral thesis about the energy levels of excited thallium.
Image Credit: Courtesy of the US Air ForceImage Caption: A scientist tests a laser at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.Era_date_from: 1957
Subscribe to 07974

Innovations

As ideas developed, they abandoned infrared radiation to instead concentrate upon visible light. The concept originally was called an "optical maser". In 1958, Bell Labs filed a patent application for their proposed optical maser; and Schawlow and Townes submitted a manuscript of their theoretical… Read More

We hope you enjoyed this essay.

Please support America's only magazine of the history of engineering and innovation, and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to Invention & Technology.

Donate

Stay informed - subscribe to our newsletter.
The subscriber's email address.