Theodore Maiman, who built the first working laser, passed away on 5 May aged 79. Maiman made his breakthrough in 1960 by generating pulses of coherent light from a fingertip-sized lump of ruby ...

This laser shadow behaves like an ordinary shadow in many respects. It follows the shape of the object (the green laser beam) and conforms to the contours of the surfaces it falls on. The team also ...

In the past half-century, lasers have gone from expensive physics experiments using rods of ruby to cheap cutting or engraving tools, and toys used to tease cats. Advances in physics made it all po… ...

This would be a milestone work in solid-state laser engineering, as the invention of ruby and Ti:sapphire.” the scientists forecast.