International Year of Light
Photos of the Month — January 2015
The United Nations has designated 2015 as “The International Year of Light and Light-Based Technologies.” The UN hopes to raise awareness this year on how optical technologies promote sustainable development and provide solutions to the worldwide struggles faced in energy, education, communications, health, and sustainability. Our historical photo collection documents the impact the field of optics has made thus far. Photos include fiber optic technology developed by Bell Laboratories and by one of this year’s Physics Nobel winners, Shuji Nakamura, as well as what is believed to be the first photo of a laser beam. To see more images related to the field of Optics, try typing the keywords, “optics” or “lasers” into the search engine. We wish you a happy New Year in 2015!
According to Steve Jacobs, this was probably the first photograph of a laser beam. The experiment demonstrated for the first time that you could do with light what had been done previously at radio frequencies. It was demonstrated that you could get ideal signal-to-noise for optical communication by Laser Optical Heterodyne Detection. Photo appeared on the cover of Electronics, a McGraw-Hill Weekly on July 12, 1963. Circa 1962.
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Stephen Jacobs Collection.
Robert Williams Wood with his mosaic replica diffraction grating at Johns Hopkins University. Circa 1938.
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, gift of David L. MacAdam.
Photo taken at General Mills Electronics Research Lab and shows Dr. Wehner (right) and Nils Laegreid observing atom ejection patterns in single crystal sputtering.
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
Shuji Nakamura shares the Nobel Prize in Physics 2014 with Hiroshi Amano and Isamu Akasaki for invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources. 2013.
Photograph by Randall Lamb, UCSB Photographic Services, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Gift of Dr. Shuji Nakamura.
C.K.N. Patel with his experimental ‘flowing gas’ laser. The glowing tube contains nitrogen in which electrical discharge is taking place. The active gas flows through the other, similar-sized tube and the gases meet in the optical cavity. Here, energy is transferred to the active gas through collision. 1967.
Bell Laboratories / Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc., courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Hecht Collection.
Loops of a hair-thin glass fiber, illuminated by laser light, represent the transmission medium for light wave systems. Glass fibers; Loops of a hair-thin glass fiber, illuminated by laser light, represent the transmission medium for light wave systems. January 28, 1976.
Bell Laboratories / Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc., courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection.
