Science and Technology Facilities Council
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50 Years of the laser - but the best is yet to come!

This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of the laser. (Sunday 16th May 2010).

For an invention that, at the time, experts referred to as a ‘solution looking for a problem’, the laser has come a very long way and underpins some of the last half century’s most influential technologies, not least the optical fibres which make today’s high speed internet possible.

Indeed the laser has had a profound and far reaching impact on a whole range of sectors from manufacturing, retail and medicine to entertainment and communications. But physicists assert that the lasers usefulness has much further to go – the best is yet to come!

Dr Kate Lancaster, at STFC’s Central Laser Facility said, “Since its invention 50 years ago the laser has had a dramatic impact on all our lives and it's hard to imagine life without it. New applications are being researched and developed almost daily in medicine, communications, industry and science - undoubtedly the laser has become a key technology in driving a whole range of socio-economic applications - a far cry from its genesis of looking for problems to solve.”

Lasers are being developed for much more, such as personalised medical treatment and helping humankind out of its energy quandary – either by directing renewable energies towards greater efficiencies by, for example, detecting changes in the wind to ensure wind turbines are in the most efficient position or, as part of the world’s most powerful laser facility, HiPER, to demonstrate the feasibility of laser driven fusion as a future clean, infinite and affordable energy source. A detailed look at the development of the laser since its invention and an insight into future applications can be found in STFC’s brochure (PDF - 2829kB - link opens in a new window) or leaflet (PDF - 490kB - link opens in a new window) ‘Lasers in our lives – 50 years of impact’.

With laser sales around the world amounting to approximately £5 billion annually, we have certainly come a long way in the 50 years since the creation of the first ruby laser by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories in California. Back in 1974 a packet of Wrigley’s chewing gum became the first ever product to be bought using a laser barcode reader and, in 1982, Billy Joel’s 52nd Street became the first album to be etched onto a compact disc for CD players’ lasers to read,-  the ‘solution’ had found a few rather impactful problems to solve.

Not satisfied however giving birth to the CD and DVD industry, nor revolutionising our supermarket shop, lasers have also become integral in even more beneficial ways as laser beams have become the communication channel for all optical fibre-based communications.

In medicine, dyes are being used alongside lasers to identify misbehaving molecules personal to any individual’s ailment which will give doctors the information required to create individual medicines which meet each individual’s needs.

And lasers are also being used by the pioneers on the frontiers of human knowledge to try and detect gravitational waves, to create star-like conditions on Earth, and to make desk-size particle accelerators (the LHC could be coming to a toy store near you).

STFC’s Central Laser Facility, based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, host world-leading laser research facilities. The Vulcan laser, for example, is one of the highest intensity lasers in the world and gives UK and international researchers’ access to the best facilities available in the field. STFC also leads the pan-European HiPER (link opens in a new window) project for laser driven fusion.

Arguably the last 50 years have been more altered by the discovery of the laser than any other discovery and, as today’s laser physicists are keen to stress, the next half century is set to be just as affected by the uses of laser as the last.

Professor David Hanna, Emeritus Professor at the Optoelectronics Research Centre, Southampton  University said, “Just as our control over the electron gave us the electronics revolution, so our control over light via the laser is ushering in a photonics revolution.  Lasers have given us a step in capability that is truly mind-boggling, and their possibilities will not be fully digested or exhausted for a very long time to come.”

Tim Holt, Chief Executive, Institute of Photonics, University of Strathclyde, said, “Today, the laser interacts with all our lives, often without us knowing it.  For example, the internet could not operate without thousands of lasers working in the background, and if those lasers suddenly stopped working, society would also stop.  Our ability to make modern, efficient and lightweight cars would be seriously affected if the manufacturers couldn’t use laser processing on the components and car body.  Lasers have changed our lives in so many ways, which nobody could have imagined 50 years ago.  The laser is a truly disruptive invention.”


Notes to Editors

Images

Images are available - please contact the Press Office for more details

Contacts:

  • Lucy Stone
    Press Officer
    STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
    Tel: +44 (0)1235 445 627

Quick history of the laser

The laser principle has its seed in Albert Einstein’s 1916 proposal for the process of stimulated emission, although he made no explicit indication that it could lead to  amplification of electromagnetic radiation.

It wasn’t until nearly 40 years later, in 1953, that Charles Hard Townes at Columbia University demonstrated a maser (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation)  and then Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories in California won the race to create the first laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), using a ruby crystal. This first laser light shone on May 16, 1960.

STFC brochure – ‘Laser in our lives – 50 years of impact’

Hard copies of brochures highlighting ‘Lasers in our lives – 50 years of impact’; STFC’s Central Laser Facility; and HiPER are available on request from STFC.

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