Laser science awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018 for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics. The first working laser (a pulsed ruby laser) was demonstrated on May 16, 1960, by Theodore Maiman at the Hughes Research Laboratories. Laser science Laser science or laser physics is a branch of optics that describes the theory and practice of lasers. Laser science is principally concerned with quantum electronics, laser construction, optical cavity design, the physics of producing a population inversion in laser media, and the temporal evolution of the light field in the laser. It is also concerned with the physics
X-ray laser The line is mostly Doppler broadened, which depends on the ions' temperature. As the common visible-light laser transitions between electronic or vibrational states correspond to energies up to only about 10 eV, different active media are needed for X-ray lasers. Again, different active media — excited atomic nuclei — must be used if yet higher frequency, gamma ray lasers are to be constructed. Between 1978 and 1988 in Project Excalibur the U.S. military attempted to develop a nuclear explosion-pumped X-ray laser for ballistic missile defense as part of the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The most often used media