Shortly after their invention, lasers were dubbed ‘a solution looking for a problem’. For us, today, this statement sounds totally strange and we may question how this point of view came up. For understanding, it is worthwhile to look closer at the process of the invention of lasers which was an exciting period not only of technological development but also interesting personal interactions. In 1916, when Albert Einstein published the theoretical basis with his paper on stimulated emission, for many years the technical environment was not advanced enough to make use of it. During the World War II, scientists, especially physicists, worked in several military projects. It was not only in the ‘Manhattan Project’ to develop the nuclear bomb, but also in projects on radar technology. When the war was over, people with high knowledge in the generation and amplification of microwaves continued their investigations in this field and worked on further improvements. The limitations of classical amplifiers were obvious; in 1951, Charles H. Townes a professor at Columbia University, New York came up with the idea of using gas molecules and stimulated emission. The problem was solved in 1954 by Charles H Townes who, along with James Gordon and Herbert Zeiger, succeeded in the development of ‘Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation’, called ‘MASER’. Townes’s maser worked with ammonia and was only a pulsed system. The concept for continuous output was first developed by Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov of the USSR. In 1964, Basov, Prokohorov and Townes shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for developing the maser concept. Soon after the realization of masers, Townes together with Arthur Schawlow investigated the possibility of optical and infrared (IR) masers. In 1957, Gordon Gould heard about these activities from his wife Ruth who was an assistant professor working on the some floor at Columbia University. Gould was asked by Townes if he could provide information about high-energy lamps. This incited Gould to work hard on his ideas on powerful light emission. At first he wanted to assign a name and decided upon the word ‘laser’ for ‘Light Amplification by
激光发明后不久，就被称为“找麻烦的解决方案”。对今天的我们来说，这种说法听起来完全奇怪，我们可能会质疑这种观点是如何产生的。为了理解，有必要仔细看看激光的发明过程，这是一个激动人心的时期，不仅是技术发展，而且是有趣的个人互动。1916年，当阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦发表了关于受激辐射的论文的理论基础时，多年来技术环境还不够先进，无法利用它。在第二次世界大战期间，科学家，特别是物理学家，在几个军事项目中工作。它不仅参与了开发核弹的“曼哈顿计划”，还参与了雷达技术项目。战争结束后，在微波产生和放大方面有渊博知识的人们继续在这一领域进行研究，并致力于进一步改进。经典放大器的局限性是显而易见的;1951年，纽约哥伦比亚大学的教授查尔斯·h·汤斯提出了利用气体分子和受激辐射的想法。这个问题在1954年被查尔斯·汤斯(Charles H Townes)解决了，他与詹姆斯·戈登(James Gordon)和赫伯特·蔡格(Herbert Zeiger)一起成功地开发了“受激辐射的微波放大”，称为“微波激射器”。汤斯的微波激射器使用的是氨，只是一个脉冲系统。连续输出的概念最早是由苏联的尼古拉·巴索夫和亚历山大·普罗霍罗夫提出的。1964年，巴索夫、普罗科霍罗夫和汤斯因发展脉泽概念而共同获得诺贝尔物理学奖。在脉泽实现后不久，汤斯与亚瑟·肖洛一起研究了光学和红外(IR)脉泽的可能性。1957年，戈登·古尔德从他的妻子露丝那里听说了这些活动，露丝是哥伦比亚大学某楼层的助理教授。汤斯问古尔德是否能提供有关高能灯的信息。这激发了古尔德努力研究他关于强光发射的想法。起初，他想给它起个名字，于是决定用“激光”这个词来表示“光放大”
{"title":"Principles of Lasers","authors":"G. Asimellis","doi":"10.1117/3.2506314.CH6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1117/3.2506314.CH6","url":null,"abstract":"Shortly after their invention, lasers were dubbed ‘a solution looking for a problem’. For us, today, this statement sounds totally strange and we may question how this point of view came up. For understanding, it is worthwhile to look closer at the process of the invention of lasers which was an exciting period not only of technological development but also interesting personal interactions. In 1916, when Albert Einstein published the theoretical basis with his paper on stimulated emission, for many years the technical environment was not advanced enough to make use of it. During the World War II, scientists, especially physicists, worked in several military projects. It was not only in the ‘Manhattan Project’ to develop the nuclear bomb, but also in projects on radar technology. When the war was over, people with high knowledge in the generation and amplification of microwaves continued their investigations in this field and worked on further improvements. The limitations of classical amplifiers were obvious; in 1951, Charles H. Townes a professor at Columbia University, New York came up with the idea of using gas molecules and stimulated emission. The problem was solved in 1954 by Charles H Townes who, along with James Gordon and Herbert Zeiger, succeeded in the development of ‘Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation’, called ‘MASER’. Townes’s maser worked with ammonia and was only a pulsed system. The concept for continuous output was first developed by Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov of the USSR. In 1964, Basov, Prokohorov and Townes shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for developing the maser concept. Soon after the realization of masers, Townes together with Arthur Schawlow investigated the possibility of optical and infrared (IR) masers. In 1957, Gordon Gould heard about these activities from his wife Ruth who was an assistant professor working on the some floor at Columbia University. Gould was asked by Townes if he could provide information about high-energy lamps. This incited Gould to work hard on his ideas on powerful light emission. At first he wanted to assign a name and decided upon the word ‘laser’ for ‘Light Amplification by","PeriodicalId":347252,"journal":{"name":"Wave Optics: Lectures in Optics, Vol. 3","volume":"94 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125713851","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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