Abstract
Laser is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation that describes the basic physical principle of its operation. Gordon, Zeiger and Townes [1] showed for the first time in 1955 that a microwave could be amplified by \(\mathrm {NH}_{3}\) molecules on the inversion transition at \(\lambda =1.26\,\mathrm {cm}\) (Fig. 4.14) if these molecules were prepared in such a way that the upper level of the transition had a larger population than the lower one. With such inverted \(\mathrm {NH}_{3}\) molecules inside a microwave cavity, the first “maser” (microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) could be operated.
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Demtröder, W. (2018). Lasers. In: Atoms, Molecules and Photons. Graduate Texts in Physics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-55523-1_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-55523-1_8
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