Abstract
Based on my most current calculations and measurements, I was becoming optimistic about the possibility of creating a laser. The tension was building, and I started to have dreams that I actually did it.
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Notes
- 1.
My descriptions of these experiments were reported and published in Physical Review Letters (1960) 4, pp. 564–566, under the title “Optical and Microwave-Optical Experiments in Ruby”; my article was received April 22 and published June 1.
- 2.
A new technology, called multilayer dielectric coatings, useful for high-efficiency optical mirrors, was being developed in those days, but that technology was not very far along.
- 3.
Editor’s note: In a later interview, Maiman explained, “In the first version, the parallel laser beam emerged from a small hole in the center of one of these end mirrors. Later versions used a semitransparent coating at the output end of the ruby.” John Silletto, “The Story of the First Laser,” TRW/DSG/QUEST (Autumn 1977), pp. 53–56, at p. 56.
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Maiman, T.H. (2018). Let There Be Coherent Light. In: The Laser Inventor. Springer Biographies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61940-8_11
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