The Development of the Maser and Laser Leads to Widespread Commercial and Research Applications
Overview
In 1953 Charles Hard Townes (1915- ) produced the first working maser. Masers generate and amplify beams of coherent microwave radiation through stimulation of excited energy states in resonant atomic or molecular systems. MASER is an acronym for this process of microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Maser principles were extended by Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow (1921- ) to the optical portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in 1958 when they published the firstdetailed proposal for building a laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). Masers have important though limited applications while lasers are more widely used in research and industry.
Background
In 1951 Charles Townes realized that Albert Einstein's (1879-1955) theory of stimulated emission could be exploited to generate and amplify microwave radiation. According to quantum theory, atoms or molecules exist in certain discrete energy states. The lowest energy level is the ground state, with higher levels being excited states. Moving from one state to another requires absorption or emission of precise amounts of energy in the form of photons of light. Since the wavelength of light determines its energy, photons must have specific wavelengths and no others.
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