Milestones in the Development of Lasers and Their Applications

##Laser Physics

Milestones;

Development/

/ Application

Award/

1917:

A. Einstein postulated stimulated emission and laid the foundation for the invention of the laser by re-deriving Planck’s law

1924:

R. Tolman observed that “molecules in the upper quantum state may return to the lower quantum state in such a way to reinforce the primary beam by “negative absorption”

1928:

R.W. Landenberg confirmed the existence of stimulated emission and negative absorption through experiments conducted on gases.

1940:

V. A. Fabrikant suggests a method for producing a population inversion in his PhD thesis and observed that “if the number of molecules in the excited state could be made larger than that of molecules in the fundamental state, radiation amplification could occur”.

1947:

W. E. Lamb and R. C. Retherford found apparent stimulated emission in hydrogen spectra

1950:

A. Kastler suggests a method of “optical pumping” for orientation of paramagnetic atoms or nuclei in the ground state. This was an important step on the way to the development of lasers for which Kastler received the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physics.

1951:

E. M. Purcell and R. V. Pound: In an experiment using nuclear magnetic resonance, Purcell and Pound introduce the concept of negative temperature, to describe the inverted populations of states usually necessary for maser and laser action.

1954

 J. P. Gordon, H. J. Zeiger and C. H. T.ownes and demonstrate first MASER operating as a very high resolution microwave spectrometer, a microwave amplifier or a very stable oscillator

1956:

N. Bloembergen first proposed a three level solid state MASER

1958:

A. Schawlow and C. H. Townes, extend the concept of MASER to the infrared and optical region introducing the concept of the laser

1959:

Gordon Gould introduces the term LASER

1960:

T. H. Maiman realizes the first working laser: Ruby laser

1960:

P. P. Sorokin and M. J. Stevenson Four level solid state laser (uranium doped calcium fluoride

1960:

A. Javan W. Bennet and D. Herriott invent the He-Ne laser

1961:

E. Snitzer: First fiber laser

1961:

P. Franken; observes optical second harmonic generation

1962:

E. Snitzer: First Nd:Glass laser

1962:

R. Hall creates the first GaAs semiconductor laser

1962:

R. W. Hellwarth invents Q-switching

1963:

Mode locking achieved

1963:

Z. Alferov and H. Kromer: Proposal of heterostructure diode lasers

1964:

C. K. N. Patel invents the CO2 laser

1964:

W. Bridges: Realizes the first Argon ion laser

1964:

Nobel Prize to C. H. Townes, N. G. Basov and A. M. Prochorov “for fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser-laser principle”

1964:

J. E. Geusic, H. M. Marcos, L. G. Van Uiteit, B. Thomas and L. Johnson: First working Nd:YAG laser

1965:

CD player

1965:

B. Fritz and E. Menke: First laser action in color centers, first seen in 1965

1966:

C. K. Kao and G. Hockam proposed using optical fibers for communication. Kao was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2009 for this work.

1966:

P. Sorokin and J. Lankard: First organic dye laser

1966:

Nobel Prize to A. Kastler “for the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms”

1970:

Z. Alferov and I. Hayashi and M. Panish: CW room temperature semiconductor laser

1970:

Corning GlassWork scientists prepare the first batch of optical fiber, hundreds of yards long and are able to communicate over it with crystal clear clarity

1971:

Nobel Prize: D Gabor “for his invention and development of the holographic method”

1975:

Barcode scanner

1975:

Commercial CW semiconductor lasers

1976:

Free electron laser

1977:

Live fiber optic telephone traffic: General Telephone & Electronics send first live telephone traffic through fiber optics, 6 Mbit/s in Long Beach CA

1979:

Vertical cavity surface emitting laser VCSEL

1981:

Nobel Prize to N Bloembergen and A L Schawlow “for their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy”

1982

P. Moulton : Ti:Sapphire laser

1983:

Redefinition of the meter based on the speed of light

1987:

Laser eye surgery

1987:

R.J. Mears, L. Reekie, I.M. Jauncey, and D.N. Payne: Demonstration of Erbium doped fiber amplifiers

1988:

Transatlantic fiber cable

1988:

Double clad fiber laser

1994:

J. Faist, F. Capasso, D. L. Sivco, C. Sirtori, A L. Hutchinson, and A Y. Cho: Development of quantum cascade lasers

1996:

S. Nakamura: First GaN laser

1996:

 W. Krupke and the team from Livermore National Lab (LLNL) proposed Transition Metals doped II-VI materials for Mid-IR laser application

1996:

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) generated the first petawatt (10¹⁵ Watt) laser pulse with 1.25PW of peak power

1997:

Nobel Prize to S. Chu, C. Cohen Tannoudji and W. D. Philips “for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light”

1997:

W. Ketterle: First demonstration of an atom laser

1997:

T. Hansch proposes an octave-spanning self-referenced universal optical frequency comb synthesizer

2000:

J. Hall, S. Cundiff J. Ye and T. Hansch: Demonstrate optical frequency comb and report first absolute optical frequency measurement

2000:

Nobel Prize to Z. I. Alferov and H. Kroemer “for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and optoelectronics

2001:

Nobel Prize to E. Cornell, W. Ketterle and C. E. Wieman “for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates

2005:

H. Rong, R. Jones, A. Liu, O. Cohen, D. Hak, A. Fang and M. Paniccia: First continuous-wave Raman silicon laser

2005:

Nobel Prize to R. J. Glauber “for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence” and to J. L. Hall and T. H. Hansch “for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique

2009:

Nobel Prize to C. K. Kao “for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication”

2014:

I. Akasaki, H. Amano and S. Nakamura “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources”

2018:

“for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics”

A. Ashkin “for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems”

G. Mourou and D. Strickland “for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses”

2022:

A team at LLNL’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) conducted the first controlled fusion experiment in history to reach this milestone, also known as scientific energy breakeven, meaning it produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it.

References

Partially, the data given here has been taken from:

·         http://www.laserfest.org/lasers/history/timeline.cfm

·         Lasers Fundamentals and Applications  K. Thyagarajan · Ajoy Ghatak, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 1981, 2010