Engineering Memory of the Month

Picture courtesy of Hughes Research Labs

Laser trailblazer

Stanford lays claim to at least a share of the credit for the development of laser technology, most recently by way of a YouTube-style ad running during football telecasts. Former physics Professor Arthur Schawlow (1921-1999), for example, was a prominent laser pioneer. Schawlow, while at Bell Labs in 1958, for example, co-authored a theoretical paper on lasers that inspired the race to build the first working one.

That feat was accomplished in May 1960 by a Stanford electrical engineering (MS 1951) alumnus. Theodore Maiman, who also earned his physics PhD here in 1955, died just shy of 80 on May 5 of this year.

The laser Maiman built while working at Hughes Research Laboratories was a small, stubby rod of ruby slipped inside a coiled flash lamp and contained by an aluminum cylinder. Maiman published the results in Nature in August 1960. Recognition came slowly, but ultimately Maiman won several prominent accolades.

EE Professor Emeritus Tony Siegman points out an interesting stratagem that Maiman employed to live out his dream of studying physics at Stanford. According to Maiman’s memoir, after two rejections by the physics department, he figured out that he could slip in the "back door" if he studied electrical engineering first. The plan worked. During his time here at Stanford, he studied under legendary professors Ed Ginzton and Willis Lamb (an eventual Nobel Laureate).

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