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Using quantum physics, Einstein, sometime in the year of 1916, predicted that rays could stimluate other atoms causing them to emit light of the same wavelength. However, no one knew how to practically do this, and many people just thought of it as a theoretical curiousity.
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Charles Hard Townes of Columbia University had come up with the idea of what would become the maser, where under the right conditions atoms would emit radiation by themselves
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In 1954, Charles Townes, along with James Gordon and Herbert Zeiger, had finished building the first ammonia Maser. It had used and matched Einstein's predictions, by being able to produce strong, controlled rays of microwaves. The picture shows their second maser.
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Charles Townes discusses how it's possible that the maser could operate in the visible light spectrum. Gordon Hughes develops the idea of using a flash tube instead of a continuous supply of light to excite the atoms
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Theodore Maiman, using a flash tube, a ruby, and silver-coated ends, constructs the first laser. It emitted red light.
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Many lasers, starting from the first ruby laser, through the dye laser are built and conceived during this time.
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Ali Javan, Donald Herriott, and William Bennett Jr. at Bell labs created the first laser with a continous stream of light using helium and neon atoms as the medium (the atoms to be excited)
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Using lasers for barcode scanners to work, the first item got scanned (Wrigley's gum pack) using one.
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First fiber optic cable is installed under Chicago. Fiber optics is a more compact and faster method than copper wires, and is also faster. It was 8 years in the making.
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The first compact disk (CD) is manuafactured, and sold commercially with a Billy Joel album. Compact disk readers use a laser to read bumps on the CD for the bits.
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Intel announced LightPeak that use optical fibers to transmit data at a rate of 10 billion bits per second (1.16gb).
