Gould 3.2 micron cesium laser tube
date: label: date made
content: 1961
name: label: maker
content: Gould, Gordon
notes: label: Description
content: In 1957 graduate student Gordon Gould was working on his doctorate in physics at Columbia University under Professor Polykarp Kusch. As he worked, he held conversations with Kusch's colleague, Charles Townes, inventor of the MASER (a device to amplify and focus microwaves into a tight beam.) Gould began to think about how one might make a so-called "optical maser". Later he coined a new word for this proposed device, calling it a LASER.
label: Description
content: As commercial applications became apparent to Gould he wrote down his thoughts and designs in a notebook that he had notarized. This notebook became the basis for his claim to be inventor of the laser. Gould left Columbia without finishing his PhD and began working on commercializing lasers. While a great deal of controversy surrounds Gould's claim of invention, not to mention many years of patent litigation, Gould did work on several laser designs, one of which is seen here.
label: Description
content: This is a tube that contained cesium gas and was made with Gould's assistance at TRG, Inc. in 1961. When energized it generated laser light at a wavelength of 3.2 microns. Gould's security clearance had been revoked due to a late-1940s affiliation with Marxism. This had the effect of preventing him from directly participating in the development of the laser--work he had been hired by TRG to perform.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Laser
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, thru Gordon Gould, Stephen Jacobs and Paul Rabinowitz
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: EM.330384
label: catalog number
content: 330384
label: accession number
content: 288761
objectType: label: Object Name
content: laser