What is known today as “laser” was earlier known as “masers and maser communication system.”
On March 22 in the year 1960, scientists Charles H. Townes and Arthur L. Schawlow were finally granted a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. They got the patent for their “masers and maser communication system,” which is known today as the laser. The laser is an acronym for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.”
Nonetheless, even before the duo of Townes and Schawlow made their breakthrough, the work on laser technology had already started. When Townes came up with the first ever “microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”, which he termed as “maser”, it was said to be based on Albert Einstein’s 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect. Einstein’s 1905 paper was on the other hand built on Max Plank’s 1900 paper on the law of radiation, which suggested that light delivers energy in chunks.
Finally, taking off those cues, the duo started their work together at Bell Labs in 1957, and Bell Labs itself filed a patent for the maser June 30, 1958, despite knowing that the laser hadn’t been made yet. Townes and Schawlow soon published a paper on their work, called “Infrared and Optical Maser” in the Physical Review. Finally, Hughes Research Laboratories made an announcement on July 7, 1960 that the first working laser was made by their employee, Theodore Maiman, and it was done on theoretical work by Townes and Schawlow.
Following in 1964, Townes was awarded half the Nobel Prize in Physics while the other half was shared by Russian physicists Alexander Prokhorov and Nikolay Basov.
Schawlow later was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1981 with Nicolaas Bloembergen, while the other half went to Kai M. Siegbahn.
To say the least, the development of the laser isn’t free of controversy. It is said that Columbia University graduate student Gordon Gould shared his idea of developing a laser with Townes in November 1957. Gould and his employer Technical Research Group applied for the patents too in 1959. While Townes and Schawlow got their patent in 1960, Gould’s application was rejected but he eventually received a patent for his laser technology in 1977.
