Optical laser patent
NOV 14, 2016
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.031351
On this day in 1967 the US Patent Office granted a patent to Theodore Maiman of Hughes Research Laboratories for the world’s first optical laser. Maiman’s innovation was to use a solid-state lasing medium—a synthetic pink ruby crystal—together with a helical xenon flash lamp as the excitation source.
Date in History: 14 November 1967
© 2016 American Institute of Physics
