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,
Trident laser Back-scatter (FABS) diagnostic at the National Ignition Facility. A new front-end for the laser employs a 2nd order cleaning technique, dubbed SPOPA (for Short-Pulse Optical Parametric Amplification) cleaning, which reduces the contrast to better than 10 ASE intensity ratio, making it one of the cleanest ultra high-intensity high-power laser in the world. The laser is currently being used for Fast Ignition ICF research, warm dense matter experiments, materials dynamics studies, and laser-matter interaction research, including particle acceleration, x-ray backlighting and laser-plasma instabilities (LPI). For more information see the Trident User Facility Website: Trident User Facility, Los Alamos National Laboratory, see