Celebrating the Laser’s First Half Century

The laser will celebrate its 50^th birthday in May 2010, and festivities are already well under way. As I mention in the forthcoming February issue of European Medical Device Technology, a group of photonics and scientific associations is marking the milestone with a series of LaserFest events at trade shows and conferences around the world. For its part, Trumpf, a pioneer in industrial laser processing, has set up an entertaining and informative website honouring the contribution of the laser to everything from digital recordings to implantable electronic devices.

The invention of the first working laser is credited to Theodore H. Maiman. He and some coworkers at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, CA, USA had assembled what is described as a makeshift device that was essentially composed of a coiled flash lamp surrounding a synthetic single-crystal ruby rod. In May 1960, he flipped a switch, saw the light, and the rest is history.

Thomas M. Baer, Executive Director of the Stanford Photonics Research Center, tells the story of the laser’s invention and precursor events in an article titled “Why Celebrate LaserFest?” First published in APS News, the article is posted under the Resources tab on the emdt.co.uk website.

Tags: 50 years, Baer, laser, laserfest, Trumpf