First Laser Ignites: Theodore Maiman Sparks a New Era
Theodore Maiman fired the first working laser on May 16, 1960, at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California. He used a synthetic ruby crystal surrounded by a helical flash lamp to produce coherent red light at 694.3 nanometers. The experiment took only a few minutes. Maiman submitted a paper to Physical Review Letters, which rejected it as too similar to theoretical predictions. He published in Nature instead. The laser was initially called "a solution looking for a problem" because no practical application was immediately obvious. Within five years, lasers were being used in eye surgery, materials processing, and telecommunications. Today they are indispensable in fiber optic communications, barcode scanners, laser printers, LASIK surgery, CD/DVD/Blu-ray players, and thousands of other applications.
May 16, 1960
66 years ago
Key Figures & Places
laser
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Theodore Maiman
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optics
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Hughes Research Laboratories
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Malibu, California
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optical laser
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ruby laser
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Theodore Maiman
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Laser
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Ruby laser
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HRL Laboratories
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Malibu, California
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California
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United States
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Douglas MacArthur
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Philippines
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