Laser laser devices. The question of just how to assign credit for inventing the laser remains unresolved by historians. On May 16, 1960, Theodore H. Maiman operated the first functioning laser at Hughes Research Laboratories, Malibu, California, ahead of several research teams, including those of Townes, at Columbia University, Arthur Schawlow, at Bell Labs, and Gould, at the TRG (Technical Research Group) company. Maiman's functional laser used a solid-state flashlamp-pumped synthetic ruby crystal to produce red laser light, at 694 nanometers wavelength; however, the device only was capable of pulsed operation, because of its three-level pumping design scheme. Later that year,
Laser communication in space an Earth ground station to LADEE in Lunar orbit. The LLCD is NASA's first attempt at two-way space communication using an optical laser instead of radio waves, and is expected to lead to operational laser systems on NASA satellites in future years. In November 2013, laser communication from a jet platform Tornado was successfully demonstrated for the first time. A laser terminal of the German company Mynaric (formerly ViaLight Communications) was used to transmit data at a rate of 1 Gbit/s over a distance of 60 km and at a flight speed of 800 km/h. Additional challenges in this scenario