Charles H. Townes of coherent radiation, for which he invented the acronym "maser" (for Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). When the same principle was applied to higher frequencies, the term "laser" was used (the word "light" substituting for the word "microwave"). During 1953, Townes, James P. Gordon, and H. J. Zeiger built the first ammonia maser at Columbia University. This device used stimulated emission in a stream of energized ammonia molecules to produce amplification of microwaves at a frequency of about 24.0 gigahertz. From 1959 to 1961, he was on leave of absence from Columbia University to serve as Vice President
Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation electrons become localized in the quantum wells and vertical electron transport takes place via hopping between neighboring quantum wells, which may be phonon assisted. As it had been shown previously, under these conditions stimulated phonon emission can become the dominant phonon-assisted hoping process for phonons of an energy value close to the Stark splitting. Thus, coherent phonon amplification is theoretically possible in this type of system. Together with the increase in amplitude, the spectrum of the bias-induced oscillations is narrower than the spectrum of the coherent phonons at zero bias. This shows that coherent amplification of phonons due to stimulated