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,
Vulcan laser Vulcan laser The Vulcan laser is an infrared, 8-beam, petawatt neodymium glass laser at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory's Central Laser Facility in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. It was the facility's first operational laser. It is designed to deliver irradiance on target of 10 W/cm for a wide-ranging experimental programme in fundamental physics and advanced applications. This includes the interaction of super high intensity light with matter, fast ignition fusion research, photon induced nuclear reactions, electron and ion acceleration by light waves, astrophysics in the laboratory and the exploration of the world of plasma dominated by relativity. In 2005 the Vulcan laser