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 first detailed 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.

An experimental laser beam is reflected through mirrors and filters. (Chris Rogers/Bilderberg, The Stock Market. Reproduced by permission.)

Background

In...