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Elsa Garmire, Dartmouth College![[ Elsa Garmire ]](../images/party_garmire.jpeg)
I was a freshman in college and I never heard of the laser, of course. Never heard of the maser, either, but in 1960 or '61, I'm not sure which, I was working during the summer at Argonne National Laboratories, and I remember that Nicholas Bloemberger and Ted Maiman gave a talk on the maser and the excitement about the work on the laser. I couldn't understand about whether he talked about the excited state being "pumped" or "bumped," with his accent, but it interested me at the time because I didn't understand exactly what it was. Well, two years later, I got the opportunity to start working with Professor Townes and in January of '62 we had the second commercial ruby laser. I remember spending the first year of my Ph. D. program working to make sure that the laser didn't arc to ground when it got cold or that the vapor from the air shorted it out. Eventually we got it to work, and it was a lot of fun. [more] Speakers in this Section |
