The Remarkable Life of Theodore Maiman.

Theodore Harold Maiman was born in Los Angeles on July 11, 1927.

Shortly after his birth, his father, Abe, an electronics engineer, received a job offer in Colorado, prompting the family to move to Denver. Theodore, affectionately known as "Ted, " from a young age," exhibited a keen curiosity, creativity, and adventurous spirit. Abe, an inventor, introduced Ted to the world of technology, profoundly influencing his passion for electronics. Wherever they lived, Abe maintained a small electronics laboratory in the basement or attic. With access to professional equipment, young Ted was able to design sophisticated projects such as audio amplifiers and simple radios. At the age of 12, he secured his first job at an electrical appliance repair shop in Denver. Thanks to the knowledge he acquired in his father's laboratory, Ted was more than capable of repairing any item brought in.

At 17, after graduating from high school, Ted worked as a junior engineer at the National Union Radio Company in Nutley, New Jersey. During this time, he became the youngest person in the United States to pass the examination for a first-class commercial radio-telephone license. That same year, Maiman enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was accepted into the radar and communications training program, further enhancing his expertise in electronics.

After the Navy, Maiman attended the University of Colorado, earning a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Physics. His graduate studies were at Stanford University (M.S. in electrical engineering, 1951, PhD in physics, 1955). His doctoral thesis in experimental physics, under the direction of future Nobel Laureate Willis Lamb, involved microwave-optical measurements of fine structure splittings in excited helium atoms. The doctoral thesis produced jointly submitted papers to the Physical Review (June 1955 and January 1957).

In January 1956, Maiman started work at Hughes Atomic Physics Department (Culver City, California), where he headed the ruby maser project for the US Army Signal Corps. He dramatically improved the performance and design of the maser (reducing its weight from the original 5,000 lbs to 25 lbs) and delivered it on time.

He further refined the maser design, so that the final version worked with liquid nitrogen cooling (previous versions required lower temperatures and worked with liquid helium), and weighed only 4 pounds. He completed the maser project in the summer of 1959 and in August he was finally able to divert his attention to the laser concept, despite of lack of support from Hughes. The "race" to build the laser was at full speed.

Thanks to his independent attitude, he won the "race". On May 16, 1960, he demonstrated the laser in action, from a ruby crystal in his laboratory at Hughes in Malibu, where the company had recently moved. It is important to note that Hughes' total expenditures in the period of laser development amounted to about $50,000, while other research groups spent millions of dollars in their unsuccessful struggles to obtain coherent light.
On June 22 of that year, Maiman sent a paper to the Physical Review Letters about his achievement but received a letter of rejection stating that the publisher was no longer interested in maser related papers. Next, he sent a short version of his paper to the British journal "Nature". Consequently, the first scientific report about the first laser appeared on August 6, 1960, not in the USA but in Great Britain. The paper was titled "Stimulated Optical Radiation in Ruby" (Nature, 1960, v.187, P.493).

In 1962, Maiman founded Korad Corporation to develop and manufacture a line of high-powered laser equipment. Korad became the market leader in its field; for example, the ruby laser created at Korad led to lunar laser ranging in 1969. Subsequently, he formed Maiman Associates, a management consulting firm which provided technical and management advisory services in high-technology fields. He also co-founded Laser Video, Inc., where he developed unique large-screen, laser driven colour video displays.
In 1976 Maiman joined the Californian aerospace company TRW and eventually served as Vice President of Advanced Technology and New Ventures for the Electronics and Defense sector. He was instrumental in organizing and launching TRW's commercial LSI Products Division, and he introduced fiber-optics technology and advanced array processor products to the company.

In 1999 he moved to Vancouver with his wife Kathleen, and three years later he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Simon Fraser University. In 2000, Maiman completed a memoir entitled "The Laser Odyssey", outlining the years and months leading up to the completion of the first laser, and his later achievements. Before his death on May 5th, 2007, he was active in the development of the optical engineering and biophotonics curriculum at SFU's School of Engineering Science.

Over his lifetime, Maiman published some 20 papers in professional journals and authored several articles in scientific encyclopedias. He presented invited papers at the American Physical Society, American Optical Society, International Conference on Quantum Electronics, the International YAG Medical Laser Society (1983), international laser medical symposiums in Tokyo, Taipei, and Bangkok, and delivered the opening ceremonial speech at the International Symposium "Laser 73" in Munich.

He was a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineers and was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America (now OPTICA), and the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.

He is the author of the basic patent on the ruby laser (the world's first laser) and has authored patents on masers, lasers, laser displays, optical scanning, and modulation.

Dr. Maiman was twice nominated for a Nobel Prize and has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including:

Fannie & John Hertz Foundation Award for "Distinguished Contribution in the Field of Science," presented in a White House ceremony by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966.

Franklin Institute, Ballantine Award for "Pioneer Development of the First Laser."

University of Colorado, Associated Alumni: George Norlin Award and "Alumnus of the Century".

Optical Society of America, R.W. Wood Prize for "Pioneer Development of the First Laser," 1976.

Wolf Foundation, Physics Prize, 1984.

Induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, 1984.

Laureate, Japan Prize for the "realization of the world's first laser," 1987.

Honorary Fellowship – Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1994 (the only non-physician, non-royal member).