Publication at Faculty of Mathematics and Physics |
2023
Abstract
The year 1963 was for Czechoslovak physics and technology in the field of quantum generators light (of lasers) such an annus mirabilis. They were successfully demonstrated within about half a year lasers of all main types: solid-state with neodymium glass (FÚ ČSAV) and ruby
(VÚ MNO, ÚRE ČSAV), semiconductor injection laser based on GaAs (ÚFPL ČSAV) and gas
He-Ne laser (ÚPT ČSAV). This article attempts to reconstruct, above all, the circumstances the creation of the first of these lasers, which emitted a beam of coherent light on April 9 1963 at the Institute of Physics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague thanks to the efforts of Dr. Karel Pátek (1927-1967).