Laser 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 "coherently". Spatial coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling applications such as laser cutting and lithography. Spatial
Stimulated emission the ground state to transition into the excited state, then what is called a population inversion is created. When light of the appropriate frequency passes through the inverted medium, the photons are either absorbed by the atoms that remain in the ground state or the photons stimulate the excited atoms to emit additional photons of the same frequency, phase, and direction. Since more atoms are in the excited state than in the ground state then an amplification of the input intensity results. The population inversion, in units of atoms per cubic meter, is where "g" and "g" are the degeneracies