Word: maiman
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Then for a while, optimism faded. Practical uses for the new source of light, which scientists christened laser (for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), proved to be both scarce and elusive. Physicist Theodore Maiman, an early laser pioneer, described the new light source as "a solution seeking a problem." He was understandably impatient, but problem after problem has since been found- in ever increasing numbers. And the versatile laser is beginning to solve those problems in a manner that more than justifies the early, expansive claims. Lasers have become a $300 million-a-year business. As they...
Just two years later, Physicist Maiman used the Townes-Schawlow theory and built the world's first working laser, a small, hand-held instrument that shot out bursts of brilliant red light. Instead of a gas, Maiman's laser used a synthetic ruby crystal grown in a bath of molten aluminum oxide. In pure form, the aluminum oxide crystal is colorless and transparent. But a pinch of chromium added to the bath as an impurity gives the resulting crystals their characteristic ruby-red hue and supplies the chromium atoms (one for every 5,000 aluminum atoms) that cause...