Laser Laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow. A laser differs from other sources of light in that it emits light "coherently". Spatial coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling applications such as laser cutting and lithography. Spatial
Laser than other semiconductor-based lasers. The device has potential for applications in quantum computing. In 2017, researchers at TU Munich demonstrated the smallest mode locking laser capable of emitting pairs of phase-locked picosecond laser pulses with a repetition frequency up to 200 GHz. In 2017, researchers from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), together with US researchers from JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder, established a new world record by developing an erbium-doped fiber laser with a linewidth of only 10 millihertz. Following the invention of the HeNe gas laser,