Laser science orlaser physics is a branch ofoptics that describes the theory and practice oflasers.[1]
Laser science is principally concerned withquantum electronics,laser construction,optical cavity design, the physics of producing apopulation inversion inlaser media, and the temporal evolution of the light field in the laser. It is also concerned with the physics of laser beam propagation, particularly the physics ofGaussian beams, withlaser applications, and with associated fields such asnonlinear optics andquantum optics.
Laser science predates the invention of the laser itself.Albert Einstein created the foundations for the laser andmaser in 1917, via a paper in which he re-derivedMax Planck’s law of radiation using a formalism based on probability coefficients (Einstein coefficients) for theabsorption,spontaneous emission, andstimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation.[2] The existence of stimulated emission was confirmed in 1928 byRudolf W. Ladenburg.[3] In 1939, Valentin A. Fabrikant made the earliest laser proposal. He specified the conditions required for light amplification using stimulated emission.[4] In 1947,Willis E. Lamb and R. C. Retherford found apparent stimulated emission in hydrogen spectra and effected the first demonstration of stimulated emission;[3] in 1950,Alfred Kastler (Nobel Prize for Physics 1966) proposed the method ofoptical pumping, experimentally confirmed, two years later, by Brossel, Kastler, and Winter.[5]
The theoretical principles describing the operation of a microwave laser (a maser) were first described byNikolay Basov andAlexander Prokhorov at theAll-Union Conference on Radio Spectroscopy in May 1952. The first maser was built byCharles H. Townes,James P. Gordon, andHerbert J. Zeiger in 1953. Townes, Basov and Prokhorov were awarded theNobel Prize in Physics in 1964 for their research in the field of stimulated emission.Arthur Ashkin,Gérard Mourou, andDonna Strickland were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018 for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics.[6]
The first working laser (a pulsedruby laser) was demonstrated on May 16, 1960, byTheodore Maiman at theHughes Research Laboratories.[7]
{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)| Types of lasers | |
|---|---|
| Laser physics | |
| Laser optics | |
