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
Organic laser Organic laser Organic lasers use an organic (carbon based) material as the gain medium. The first organic laser was the liquid dye laser. These lasers use laser dye solutions as their gain media. Organic lasers are inherently tunable and when configured as optimized multiple-prism grating laser oscillators can yield efficient single-transverse mode, and single-longitudinal-mode, emission with laser linewidths as narrow as 350 MHz (approximately 0.0004 nm at a wavelength of 590 nm), in the high-power pulsed regime. Solid-state dye lasers are organic tunable lasers that use a variety of organic gain media, such as laser dye-doped polymers (DDP), laser dye-doped