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,
Ring laser formula_37, i.e. a definitely non-planar beam is (left-handed or right-handed) circularly (not elliptically) polarized. On the other hand, if formula_38 (a planar ring), the formula above results in p or s reflection (linear polarization). A planar ring, however, is invariably s-polarized because the losses of the multilayer mirrors used are always less in s-polarized beams (at the so-called “Brewster angle”, the reflected p-component even vanishes). There are at least two interesting applications: 1. The Raytheon ring laser. The fourth mirror is elevated by a certain amount over the plane of the other three. The Raytheon ring laser works with four