Addendum 2: “Ted Maiman and the Laser: 50 Years Later,” Tribute by Nick Holonyak, Jr.

Abstract

As is often said, everyone has a story. All of us who’ve had an opportunity to contribute to the science and technology of the laser in the beginning, in its infancy, have our own stories of how we arrived at various basic discoveries, of whose work mattered to us and whose did not. As we now approach the 50th anniversary of Ted Maiman’s ruby laser—the first laser (May 1960)—we have a rare opportunity to look back at this golden moment and recall how it influenced our thinking and our work.

Holonyak is inventor of the visible spectrum light-emitting diode (LED) and the laser diode in 1962 and co-inventor with Milton Feng of the transistor laser in 2004. His tribute was read at the memorial to Theodrore Maiman, May 16, 2010, Vancouver, Canada, and published by the National Academy of Sciences in Biographical Memoirs: Theodore H. Maiman, http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/maiman-theodore.pdf.

(Courtesy of the author and the National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.)