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The Laser Inventor pp 77–87Cite as

Race to the Light

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Part of the book series: Springer Biographies ((SPRINGERBIOGS))

Abstract

By the end of July, in the summer of 1959, I completed my work on the miniaturized liquid-nitrogen ruby maser . Starting in early August, I reassembled my earlier formative thoughts that had been interrupted and diverted, when I was enlisted into the ruby maser project. I began to devote full effort to consideration and analysis of my concepts for a laser.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    One million dollars in 1959 is equivalent to about five million dollars in 2000.

  2. 2.

    The chemical alkali elements, of which potassium is a representative, have very high chemical reactivity, so much so, that they cannot be safely handled with bare hands. A piece of alkali metal dropped into water starts a fire.

  3. 3.

    Chemical activity increases rapidly when the temperature rises.

  4. 4.

    I back up my view of the Schawlow–Townes proposal in Chap. 19.

  5. 5.

    A new immature technology called multilayer dielectric coating had to be employed to develop that special mirror.

  6. 6.

    The word “doped” in the context of crystal growth refers to the addition of controlled amounts of impurities.

  7. 7.

    The ruby crystal growth process is explained in Chap. 20.

  8. 8.

    It is, perhaps, somewhat confusing that ruby can be used for masers as well as lasers. That is a coincidence; there is no direct connection between the two.

  9. 9.

    Saturo Sagano and Y. Tanabe.

  10. 10.

    The second level is the broad green band.

  11. 11.

    In Chap. 9, I offer an extension of the marble-on-the-table analogy to elucidate the fluorescence process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Theodore H. Maiman

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  1. Theodore H. Maiman
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Correspondence to Theodore H. Maiman .

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Maiman, T.H. (2018). Race to the Light. In: The Laser Inventor. Springer Biographies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61940-8_8

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