Lasers and Patent Wars

Lasers and Patent Wars

One stop on our Baltic cruise a couple weeks ago was

Stockholm, where we took an afternoon water tour of this

impressive city and its surroundings. The tour boat passed by the

hall where the Nobel Prizes ceremonies are held. Our guide said

that when Alfred Nobel died there was an understandable

reluctance on the part of his relatives to accept the provisions of

his will, which dictated that his estate be used to set up a fund to

award prizes “… to those who, during the preceding year, shall

have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” According to

our guide, the local politicians also were not impressed and

considered it a stupid idea and it took six years before the Nobel

Prizes became a reality. The winner of the first Nobel Prize in

physics in 1901 was Wilhelm Roentgen, for his discovery of X-

rays. Coincidentally, after our cruise, we were in the famed

Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and I noticed that encircling the

concert hall in large letters, under the upper level of seats, were

the names of famous composers, e.g., Wagaanar (sic),

Tchaikowsky, Dvorak, etc. Strangely, among these composers

was the name Roentgen. I believe that this is the same Roentgen

and there must be a story behind his inclusion in this unusual

setting. If anyone knows the answer please let me know.

In April, another Nobelist, Arthur Schawlow, died at the age of 77.

Schawlow was born in Canada and, after getting his doctorate in

physics from the University of Toronto, went to Columbia

University to work as a post doc with Prof. Charles Townes.

Townes had invented the MASER, a novel device for producing

“coherent” microwaves. Schawlow proved such a good physicist

that Townes wanted to keep him on at Columbia but Schawlow

crossed him up by marrying Townes” sister. Fortunately for Bell

Labs, Columbia frowned on the nepotism if Townes hired his

brother-in-law and Schawlow left Columbia to join Bell Labs to

work on superconductivity. However, in their spare time, the two

brothers-in-law still got together trying to figure out how to extend

Townes” maser principles from the microwave to the optical region.

They finally came up with an idea for constructing a “LASER”

(Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation),

published a paper in 1958 and received a patent in 1960. Since

Schawlow was working for Bell Labs and Townes was also a

consultant for Bell Labs (he had worked there earlier), neither

received royalties for their invention. I imagine, however, that

Schawlow got a good raise that year. In 1964, Townes got a

Nobel Prize for his maser and laser work and in 1981 Schawlow

received his for contributions to laser spectroscopy. Of course,

the Nobel Prizes added some spare change to the Schawlow and

Townes family coffers.

Why all the fuss about the laser? Essentially, the laser involves

generating a beam of light composed of photons which are all in

sync, kind of like a bunch of soldiers marching in step, all in the

same direction. The laser design of Schawlow and Townes involved

a long tube of a material with mirrors on both ends. In this

arrangement, the photons bounce back and forth between the

mirrors. When one of these photons hits an atom that has been

“pumped up” by an external light source, the pumped up atom emits

another photon of the same wavelength or color. (This is the

“stimulated emission of radiation”, a concept traceable back to none

other than Einstein, who received his own Nobel Prize for his work

on photons and light emission, not for E=mc2 or his theory of

relativity!) One consequence of this mirror arrangement is that the

number of photons marching in step keeps multiplying (the “light

amplification”), while those that are not in step wander off in

different directions and are lost. How does the laser light get

out? One of the mirrors is made to be partially transparent and a

light beam of in-step photons emerges from this end. The laser

light beam does not spread out like the light from ordinary light

bulb but stays focused in a narrow beam. Another feature of the

laser is that the light can be very “pure” in color, that is, the

photons all have pretty much the same wavelength. Also, by

concentrating the light in a narrow beam, the energy can be quite

intense. This is kind of like when as kids we used a magnifying

glass to focus the sun”s rays to start a fire with a piece of paper or

wood; easier than the Boy Scout method of rubbing two sticks

together.

Schawlow and Townes only published the principles for laser

operation but had not actually constructed one. Workers at Bell

Labs and many other laboratories were feverishly trying to be the

first to make a laser. Many different approaches were tried and it

was Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, working

on his own, who in 1960 first demonstrated laser action, in a ruby

crystal. (Those of you who think of ruby as a gemstone would be

impressed to see synthetic ruby crystals a foot or two in length and

over an inch in diameter!) Maiman”s laser operated only in pulses

and there followed a contest to see who would make the first

laser to operate continuously. In 1960 and 1961, workers at Bell

Labs demonstrated continuous laser action in a helium neon gas

laser and in calcium tungstate as well as in ruby. Over the years all

kinds of materials and structures have been used to make lasers

including modifications of the light emitting diode structures we

discussed in an earlier column. In these semiconductor lasers the

pumping is done not by light but by an electric current.

Today, we all know or have heard of the multitude of uses to which

the laser has been put. We discussed in an earlier column lasers in

your compact disk player. The applications in the medical field are

myriad. I myself have had laser surgery on one eye and have

suffered no ill effects (though a retinal specialist later informed me

that my surgery was not needed!). There are many laser treatments

for various skin problems, most of which rely on the selectivity of

the reaction of the particular skin problem to particular colors of

the laser beam. The sale of the ubiquitous red laser pointer used

by speakers is now being restricted in some localities because of

the possibility of inflicting eye damage in the hands of a careless

youngster or even a criminal type. Surveyors can now measure

distances to remarkable precision with laser devices. Just

beginning to emerge is the use of lasers in the dental chair. If

successful, the amount of pain and apprehension that will no

longer exist for dental patients will be worth every cent spent in

laser development! The silicon chip may become even faster

when tiny lasers are incorporated on the chips and the signals are

carried at the speed of light around the integrated circuits.

Back to Schawlow, who left Bell Labs in 1961 to go to Stanford

University. He had a good sense of humor and I remember him

giving a lecture on lasers at Bell Labs in which he answered a

question about the possibility of using lasers as death rays.

Schawlow”s reply was that it was indeed possible but that he had

perfected the anti-laser defense. He then showed a picture of a

knight in his shining armor, which would reflect the light beam

with no damage to the wearer! One obituary mentioned that

while at Stanford he loved to give popular demonstrations of the

laser. One of these involved shooting the beam from a “ray gun”

laser through a transparent balloon and popping another, darker

balloon inside the first one. This illustrates the selectivity of the

interactions of laser light of different wavelengths (colors). For

example, if the outer transparent balloon is green and a green

laser is used, the green light is not absorbed by the green balloon;

otherwise the balloon would not be green! If the balloon inside is

deep red, this means that red light is not absorbed but the green

light is. This heats up the balloon and it pops.

A very interesting sidebar on the laser story is the patent controversy

that erupted after the Schawlow-Townes patent of 1960. Gordon

Gould, a 37-year-old graduate student working with another

professor at Columbia, claimed that he had in his notebook a

notarized entry in 1957 describing the laser idea prior to the

Townes-Schawlow work. Gould apparently was under the

impression that he had to come up with a working laser before he

could file for a patent and did not file until 1959, after leaving

Columbia to join TRG to concentrate on developing his laser.

Gould”s efforts to sustain his claim were turned down by the courts

in the 1960s. However, he did not give up and his fight to prove his

claim became a well-publicized media event as a David and Goliath

encounter. Finally, in 1977, Gould did indeed receive a patent on

optical pumping of lasers. Ironically, this was some 17 years after

the 1960 patent of Townes and Schawlow and their patent

presumably was expiring! Over the next decade or so, Gould was

awarded three more patents dealing with various laser designs and

also with laser applications. I”m not sure what the situation is today,

but we used to joke that a patent attorney wasn”t very good if he got

the patent granted on the first try, the reason being that the sooner

the patent was granted, the sooner it expired. Certainly, from that

standpoint, Gould had the best of all possible worlds with some of

his patents still in force today and the burgeoning use of lasers

worldwide. If he is still living, Gould will be 79 on July 17 and I

would imagine still benefiting from laser royalties.

Today, laser research is still alive and well. Bell Labs, for

example, is working on the “quantum cascade” laser (likened to

an electronic waterfall) and “bow-tie” lasers so small that

hundreds can fit on the proverbial head of a pin! Another

amazing development involves the demonstration of a system in

which a single laser generates pulses of 206 different “colors,”

each pulse lasting less than a trillionth of a second. Because

different colors travel at different speeds, the result is a bunch of

“rainbows”, packets of 206 colors, traveling down an optical fiber

with the potential to carry enormous amounts of information (TV,

movies, data, etc.), all on a single line. Now, if only my feeble

brain could be programmed to handle the information already

inundating me!

Allen F. Bortrum