19 Facts About Theodore Maiman

Theodore Harold Maiman was an American engineer and physicist who is widely credited with the invention of the laser.

Theodore Maiman was granted a patent for his invention, and he received many awards and honors for his work.

Theodore Maiman published two articles jointly with Lamb in Physical Review, the second of which was based on his own thesis research.

In 1956 Theodore Maiman started work with the Atomic Physics Department of the Hughes Aircraft Company in California where he led the ruby maser redesign project for the US Army Signal Corps, reducing it from a 2.5-ton cryogenic device to 4 pounds while improving its performance.

Theodore Maiman had begun conceptualizing a solid-state laser design even before he undertook the maser project at Hughes.

Theodore Maiman was installed as vice president of the Applied Physics Laboratory, and he hired seven Hughes colleagues.

When its funds dried up because the venture capitalist was taken over, Theodore Maiman found an eager partner in Union Carbide with whom to nurse his improved synthetic ruby plant, and in 1962 Theodore Maiman founded and became the president of the Korad Corporation, which manufactured high-power ruby lasers.

Theodore Maiman was awarded US Patent Number 3,353,115 for his "Ruby Laser Systems" on November 14,1967, and paid $300 for it by assignee Hughes Aircraft Company.

In 1971 Theodore Maiman founded the Laser Video Corporation, and from 1976 to 1983 he worked as vice president for advanced technology at TRW Electronics.

Theodore Maiman received numerous prizes, awards, and accolades over the years for his development of the first laser.

Theodore Maiman was granted membership in both the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering.

Theodore Maiman was made a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, and the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.

In 1962 Theodore Maiman was awarded the Franklin Institute's Stuart Ballantine Medal for physics.

In 1966 Maiman received the American Physical Society's Oliver E Buckley Condensed Matter Prize and the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Award for distinguished contribution in the field of science, presented in a White House ceremony by President Lyndon B Johnson.

In 2011, Theodore Maiman was recognized by Stanford University as a "Stanford Engineering Hero", citing his "rare blend of advanced training in physics and engineering combined with significant laboratory experience".

In 2014, the National Academy of Sciences published a biographical memoir of Theodore Maiman including a tribute by Nick Holonyak, Jr.

Theodore Maiman died from systemic mastocytosis on May 5,2007, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where he lived with his second wife, Kathleen, whom he met on February 13,1984.

Theodore Maiman had one daughter, named Sheri, with his first wife, Shirley, whom he married in 1956.

Sheri Theodore Maiman died of cancer in 1988 at the age of 30.