Laser science awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018 for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics. The first working laser (a pulsed ruby laser) was demonstrated on May 16, 1960, by Theodore Maiman at the Hughes Research Laboratories. Laser science Laser science or laser physics is a branch of optics that describes the theory and practice of lasers. Laser science is principally concerned with quantum electronics, laser construction, optical cavity design, the physics of producing a population inversion in laser media, and the temporal evolution of the light field in the laser. It is also concerned with the physics
Cyclops laser Cyclops laser Cyclops was a high-power laser built at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 1975. It was the second laser constructed in the lab's "Laser" program, which aimed to study inertial confinement fusion (ICF). The Cyclops was a single-beam Neodymium glass (Nd:glass) laser. The Janus laser, a two-beam version of it, was also completed in 1975. The main scientific aims of its construction were for the study of nonlinear focusing effects in high power laser beams, novel amplification techniques (disks of Nd:glass at the brewster angle), spatial filtering techniques which would be used on subsequent higher powered lasers