Home-made Laser
date: label: Date made
content: 1964
label: date ordered, given, or borrowed
content: 1985-03-15
name: label: maker
content: Fry, Stephen M.
notes: label: Description
content: The term “home-made laser” almost seems a contradiction but that is not the case. This gas laser was built by high school student Stephen M. Fry in 1964, only four years after Ali Javan made the first gas laser at Bell Labs. Fry followed plans published in Scientific American's "The Amateur Scientist" column in September 1964, (page 227).
label: Description
content: The glass tube is filled with helium and neon and, as the magazine reported, "seems to consist merely of a gas-discharge tube that looks much like the letter 'I' in a neon sign; at the ends of the tube are flat windows that face a pair of small mirrors. Yet when power is applied, the device emits as many as six separate beams of intense light."
label: Description
content: The discharge tube is the only piece of this particular laser that remains. The flat windows (called "Brewster windows") are square instead of round, and the electrodes are parallel to the gas tube instead of perpendicular. Otherwise it resembles the drawings in the magazine. Fry later earned a Ph.D. in physics with a dissertation on lasers.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: web subject
content: Laser
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
label: See more items in
content: Energy & Power
label: See more items in
content: Lasers
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Stong, C. L.. How a perservering anateur can build a gas laser in the home
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: from Stephen M. Fry
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1985.0269.01
label: accession number
content: 1985.0269
label: catalog number
content: 1985.0269.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: tube, laser
label: Object Name
content: laser
label: Other Terms
content: tube, laser; Lasers and Masers
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (electrodes material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 2 cm x 45 cm x 6.3 cm; 13/16 in x 17 11/16 in x 2 1/2 in