Laser Elsewhere, in the U.S., Schawlow and Townes had agreed to an open-resonator laser design – apparently unaware of Prokhorov's publications and Gould's unpublished laser work. At a conference in 1959, Gordon Gould published the term LASER in the paper "The LASER, Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation". Gould's linguistic intention was using the "-aser" word particle as a suffix – to accurately denote the spectrum of the light emitted by the LASER device; thus x-rays: "xaser", ultraviolet: "uvaser", et cetera; none established itself as a discrete term, although "raser" was briefly popular for denoting radio-frequency-emitting devices. Gould's notes included
Maser slightly since its introduction. Initially the acronym was universally given as "microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation", which described devices which emitted in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The principle and concept of stimulated emission has since been extended to more devices and frequencies. Thus, the original acronym is sometimes modified, as suggested by Charles H. Townes, to ""molecular" amplification by stimulated emission of radiation." Some have asserted that Townes's efforts to extend the acronym in this way were primarily motivated by the desire to increase the importance of his invention, and his reputation in the scientific