Laser miliatary aviation, due to the potential to temporarily distract or blind pilots. See Lasers and aviation safety for more on this topic. 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
Stimulated emission in such an excited state may thus result in radiation which has a narrow spectrum (centered around one wavelength of light), but the individual photons would have no common phase relationship and would also emanate in random directions. This is the mechanism of fluorescence and thermal emission. An external electromagnetic field at a frequency associated with a transition can affect the quantum mechanical state of the atom without being absorbed. As the electron in the atom makes a transition between two stationary states (neither of which shows a dipole field), it enters a transition state which does have a dipole