Abstract
When Theodore Maiman eked out the first pulses of coherent light from a pinkruby crystal on 16 May 1960, the 32-year-old engineer-turned-physicist at Hughes Research Laboratories in the US could not have imagined that the laser would become such a workhorse of physics – and so engrained in everyday life. Within weeks, other physicists – notably those at Bell Laboratories – had reproduced Maiman's success, with Bell Labs scientists then quickly notching up many other laser “firsts”, including the first gas lasers and the first continuously operating ruby lasers.
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