|
~300 BC
|
Euclid
(Alexandria)
In his Optica he noted that light travels in
straight lines and described the law of reflection.
He believed that vision involves rays going from the
eyes to the object seen and he studied the relationship
between the apparent sizes of objects and the angles
that they subtend at the eye.
|
|
Probably
between
100 BC and 150 AD
|
Hero (also known as Heron) of Alexandria. In his Catoptrica,
Hero showed by a geometrical method that the actual path taken by a ray
of light reflected from a plane mirror is shorter than any other
reflected path that might be drawn between the source and point of
observation.
|
|
~140 AD
|
Claudius Ptolemy
(Alexandria).
In a twelfth-century latin translation from the arabic
that is assigned to Ptolemy, a study of refraction,
including atmospheric refraction, was described. It
was suggested that the angle of refraction is proportional
to the angle of incidence.
|
|
965-1020
|
Ibn-al-Haitham
( also known as Alhazen) (b. Basra).
In his investigations, he used spherical and parabolic
mirrors and was aware of spherical aberration. He also
investigated the magnification produced by lenses and
atmospheric refraction. His work was translated into
Latin and became accessible to later European scholars.
|
|
~1220
|
Robert Grosseteste (England). Magister scholarum
of the University of Oxford and a proponent of the view that
theory should be compared with observation, Grosseteste considered that
the properties of light have particular significance in natural
philosophy and stressed the importance of mathematics and geometry in
their study. He believed that colours are related to intensity and that
they extend from white to black, white being the purest and lying
beyond red with black lying below blue. The rainbow was conjectured to
be a consequence of reflection and refraction of sunlight by layers in
a 'watery cloud' but the effect of individual droplets was not
considered. He held the view, shared by the earlier Greeks, that vision
involves emanations from the eye to the object perceived.
|
|
~1267
|
Roger Bacon
(England).
A follower of Grosseteste at Oxford,
Bacon extended Grosseteste's work on optics. He considered
that the speed of light is finite and that it is propagated
through a medium in a manner analogous to the propagation
of sound. In his Opus Maius, Bacon described his studies
of the magnification of small objects using convex lenses
and suggested that they could find application in the
correction of defective eyesight. He attributed the
phenomenon of the rainbow to the reflection of sunlight
from individual raindrops.
|
|
~1270
|
Witelo (Silesia).
Completed his Perspectiva which was destined
to remain a standard text on optics for several centuries.
Amongst other things, Witelo described a method of machining
parabolic mirrors from iron and carried out careful
observations on refraction. He recognized that the angle
of refraction is not proportional to the angle of incidence
but was unaware of total internal reflection.
|
|
1303
|
Bernard of
Gordon (France).
A Physician, he mentioned the use of spectacles as a
way of correcting long-sightedness.
|
|
1304~1310
|
Theodoric (Dietrich)
of Freiberg. Theodoric explained the rainbow as a consequence
of refraction and internal reflection within individual
raindrops. He gave an explanation for the appearance
of a primary and secondary bow but, following earlier
notions, he considered colour to arise from a combination
of darkness and brightness in different proportions.
|
|
~1590
|
Zacharius Jensen
(Netherlands).
Constructed a compound microscope with a converging
objective lens and a diverging eye lens.
|
|
1604
|
Johannes Kepler
(Germany).
In his book Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena, Kepler
suggested that the intensity of light from a point source
varies inversely with the square of the distance from
the source, that light can be propagated over an unlimited
distance and that the speed of propagation is infinite.
He explained vision as a consequence of the formation
of an image on the retina by the lens in the eye and
correctly described the causes of long-sightedness and
short-sightedness.
|
|
1608
|
Hans Lippershey
(Netherlands).
Constructed a telescope with a converging objective
lens and a diverging eye lens.
|
|
1609
|
Galileo Galilei
(Italy).Constructed
his own version of Lippershey's telescope and started
to use it for astronomical observations.
|
|
1610
|
Galileo Galilei
(Italy). Using his telescope, Galileo reported several
astronomical discoveries including that Jupiter has
four moons.
|
|
1611
|
Johannes Kepler
(Germany).
In his Dioptrice, Kepler presented an explanation
of the principles involved in the convergent/divergent
lens microscopes and telescopes. In the same treatise,
he suggested that a telescope could be constructed using
a converging objective and a converging eye lens and
described a combination of lenses that would later become
known as the telephoto lens. He discovered total internal
reflection, but was unable to find a satisfactory relationship
between the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction.
|
|
~1618
|
Christopher
Scheiner. Constructed a telescope of the type suggested
by Kepler with converging objective and eye lenses.
This type of telescope has since become known as the
'astronomical telescope' but it is uncertain when the
first such instrument was constructed.
|
|
1621
|
Willebrord
Snell (Leiden).
Discovered the relationship between the angle of incidence
and angle of refraction when light passes from one transparent
medium to another.
|
|
1647
|
B Cavalieri.
Derived a relationship between the radii of curvature
of the surfaces of a thin lens and its focal length.
|
|
1657
|
Pierre de Fermat
(France).
Enunciated his principle of 'least time', according
to which, a ray of light follows the path which takes
it to its destination in the shortest time. This principle
is consistent with Snell's law of refraction.
|
|
1663
|
James Gregory
(England).
Suggested the use of a converging mirror for the objective
of a telescope as a cure for aberrations.
|
|
1665
|
Francesco Maria
Grimaldi (Italy).
In a book entitled Physico-Mathesis de lumine, coloribus
et iride published posthumously, Grimaldi's observations
of diffraction when he passed white light through small
apertures were described. Grimaldi concluded that light
is a fluid that exhibits wave-like motion.
|
|
1665
|
Robert Hooke
(England).
In his treatise, Micrographia, Hooke described
his observations with a compound microscope having a
converging objective lens and a converging eye lens.
In the same work, he described his observations of the
colours produced in flakes of mica, soap bubbles and
films of oil on water. He recognized that the colour
produced in mica flakes is related to their thickness
but was unable to establish any definite relationship
between thickness and colour. Hooke advocated a wave
theory for the propagation of light.
|
|
1666
|
Isaac Newton
(England).
Described the splitting up of white light into its component
colours when it is passed through a prism.
|
|
1668
|
Isaac Newton
(England).
As a solution to the problem of chromatic aberration
exhibited by refracting telescopes, Newton
constructed the first reflecting telescope.
|
|
1669
|
Erasmus Bartholinus
(Denmark).
Discovered double refraction in calcite.
|
|
1672
|
Isaac Newton
(England).
Newton's
earlier observations on the dispersion of sunlight as
it passed through a prism were reported to the Royal
Society. Newton
concluded that sunlight is composed of light of different
colours which are refracted by glass to different extents.
|
|
1676
|
Olaf Römer
(Denmark)
Deduced that the speed of light is finite from detailed
observations of the eclipses of the moons of Jupiter.
From Römer's data, a value of about 2 x 108
m.s-1 is obtainable.
|
|
1678
|
Christiaan
Huygens (Netherlands).
In a communication to the Academie des Science in Paris,
Huygens propounded his wave theory of light (published
in his Traite de Lumiere in 1690). He considered
that light is transmitted through an all-pervading aether
that is made up of small elastic particles, each of
which can act as a secondary source of wavelets. On
this basis, Huygens explained many of the known propagation
characteristics of light, including the double refraction
in calcite discovered by Bartholinus.
|
|
1704
|
Isaac Newton
(England).
In his Optiks, Newton
put forward his view that light is corpuscular but that
the corpuscles are able to excite waves in the aether.
His adherence to a corpuscular nature of light was based
primarily on the presumption that light travels in straight
lines whereas waves can bend into the region of shadow.
|
|
1727
|
James Bradley
(England).
Bradley calculated the speed of light from observations
of the 'aberration' of light from stars, an apparent
motion of a star arising from the value of the speed
of light in relation to the speed of the earth in its
orbit.
|
|
1733
|
Chester More
Hall. Constructed an achromatic compound lens using
components made from glasses with different refractive
indices.
|
|
1752
|
Thomas Melvill (Scotland). Observed that the spectra of flames
into which metals or salts have been introduced show bright lines
characteristic of what has been introduced into the flame
|
|
1801
|
Thomas Young
(b. England).
Provided support for the wave theory by demonstrating
the interference of light.
|
|
1802
|
William Hyde
Wollaston (England).
Discovered that the spectrum of sunlight is crossed
by a number of dark lines, but he did not interpret
them in accordance with current explanations.
[Phil.Trans.Roy.Soc., London. p365, 1802]
|
|
1808
|
Etienne Louis
Malus (France).
As a result of observing light reflected from the windows
of the Palais Luxembourg in Paris through a calcite
crystal as it is rotated, Malus discovered an effect
that later led to the conclusion that light can be polarized
by reflection.
|
|
1814
|
Joseph Fraunhofer
(Germany).
Fraunhofer rediscovered the dark lines in the solar
spectrum noted by Wollaston and determined their position
with improved precision.
|
|
1815
|
David Brewster
(Scotland).
Described the polarization of light by reflection.
|
|
1816
|
Augustin Jean
Fresnel (France).
Presented a rigorous treatment of diffraction and interference
phenomena showing that they can be explained in terms
of a wave theory of light.
|
|
1816-1817
|
As a result
of investigations by Fresnel and Dominique Francois
Arago on the interference of polarized light and their
subsequent interpretation by Thomas Young, it was concluded
that light waves are transverse and not , as had been
previously thought, longitudinal.
|
|
1819
|
Joseph Fraunhofer
(Germany).
Described his investigations of the diffraction of light
by gratings which were initially made by winding fine
wires around parallel screws.
|
|
1821
|
Augustin Jean
Fresnel (France).
Presented the laws which enable the intensity and polarization
of reflected and refracted light to be calculated.
|
|
1823
|
Joseph Fraunhofer
(Germany).
Published his theory of diffraction.
|
|
1828
|
William Nicol
(Scotland).
Invented a polarizing prism made from two calcite components.
The device became known subsequently as a "nicol prism".
|
|
1834
|
John Scott
Russell (Scotland).
Observed a 'wave of translation' caused by a boat being
drawn along the Union
Canal
in Scotland,
and noted how it travelled great distances without apparent
change of shape. Such waves subsequently became known
as 'solitary waves' and their study led to the idea
of solitons, optical analogues of which have been propagated
in optic fibres.
[Report of the 14th meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, p311, 1844]
|
|
1835
|
George Airy
(England).
Calculated the form of the diffraction pattern produced
by a circular aperture.
|
|
1845
|
Michael Faraday
(England).
Described the rotation of the plane of polarized light
that is passed through glass in a magnetic field (the
Faraday effect).
|
|
1849
|
Armand Hypolite
Louis Fizeau (France). Using a rotating toothed wheel
to break up a light beam into a series of pulses, Fizeau
made the first non-astronomical determination of the
speed of light (in air). Obtained a value of 313,300
km/s.
|
|
1850
|
J L Foucault
(France).
Foucault determined the speed of light in air using
a rotating mirror method. Obtained a value of 298,000
km.s-1.In the same year, Foucault used a
rotating mirror method to measure the speed of light
in stationary water and found that it was less than
in air.
|
|
1855
|
David Alter
(USA).
Described the spectrum of hydrogen and other gases.
|
|
1859
|
H L Fizeau
(France). Performed an experiment to determine whether
the velocity of light in water is affected by flow of
the water. He found that it is, the change in the velocity
of light being about a half of the velocity of the flowing
water.
|
|
1860
|
Robert Wilhelm
Bunsen and Gustav Kirchoff. Observed the emission spectra
of alkali metals in flames and also noted the presence
of dark lines arising from absorption when observing
the spectrum of a bright light source through the flame.
The origin of these dark lines was similar to that of
dark lines in the solar spectrum observed by Wollaston
and Fraunhofer and attributed to the absorption of light
by gases in the solar atmosphere that are cooler than
those emitting the light.
[Annalen der Physik und der Chemie. 110, 1860]
|
|
1865
|
James Clerk
Maxwell (Scotland).
From his studies of the equations describing electric
and magnetic fields, it was found that the speed of
an electromagnetic wave should, within experimental
error, be the same as the speed of light. Maxwell concluded
that light is a form of electromagnetic wave.
|
|
1869
|
John Tyndall
(Ireland).
Described experimental studies of the scattering of
light from aerosols.
[Phil. Mag. 37, 384; 38 , 156,
1869]
|
|
1871
|
John William
Strutt, third Baron Rayleigh (England).
Presented a general law which related the intensity
of light scattered from small particles to the wavelength
of the light when the dimensions of the particles is
much less than the wavelength. He also made a 'zone
plate' which produced focussing of light by Fresnel
diffraction.
[Phil. Mag. 41, 107,274,447, 1871]
|
|
1873
|
Ernst Abbe
(Germany).
Presented a detailed theory of image formation in the
microscope.
|
|
1874
|
Marie Alfred
Cornu (France).
Described a graphical approach (the Cornu spiral) to
the solution of diffraction problems.
|
|
1875
|
John Kerr (Scotland).
Demonstrated the quadratic electro-optic effect (the
Kerr effect) in glass.
|
|
1879
|
Josef Stefan
(Austria).
Presented an empirical relationship which asserted that
the total radiant energy emitted from a body per unit
time is proportional to the fourth power of the absolute
temperature of the body.
|
|
1879
|
Joseph Swan
(England).
Demonstrated an electric lamp with a carbon filament.
|
|
1879
|
Thomas Alvin
Edison (USA).
Developed the electric lamp using cotton as the source
of the carbon filament and produced it as a practical
device.
|
|
1882
|
Albert Abraham
Michelson (USA,
b. Poland).
Described the Michelson interferometer.
|
|
1885
|
Johann Jakob
Balmer (Switzerland).
Presented an empirical formula describing the position
of the emission lines in the visible part of the spectrum
of hydrogen.
|
|
1887
|
Albert A Michelson
and Edward W Morley (USA).
Described their unsuccessful attempts to detect the
motion of the earth with respect to the 'Luminiferous
Aether' by investigating whether the speed of light
depends upon the direction in which the light beam moves.
(The Michelson-Morley experiment)
|
|
1887
|
Heinrich Hertz
(Germany).
Accidentally discovered the photoelectric effect.
|
|
1890
|
O Wiener. Observed
standing waves in light reflected at normal incidence
from a silver mirror. Nodes and antinodes in the standing
wave were detected photographically and it was concluded
that a node exists at the mirror surface. From this
it is concluded that, at least as far as photographic
effects are concerned, the electric component of the
electomagnetic wave has the more important effect.
|
|
1891/92
|
L Mach and L Zehnder separately
described what has become known as the Mach-Zehnder interferometer
which could monitor changes in refractive index, and hence density, in
compressible gas flows. The instrument has subsequently been applied in
the field of aerodynamics
|
|
1895
|
D J Korteweg
and G deVries (Netherlands).
Korteweg and his student, deVries, derived a non-linear
partial differential equation governing the propagation
of waves in shallow water that described the soliton
wave described by John Scott Russell. Study of the Korteweg-deVries
(KdV) equation has had an important role in the development
of the mathematical description of solitons.
|
|
1896
|
Wilhelm Wien
(Germany).
Described how the spectral distribution of radiation
from a black body varies with the temperature of the
body.
[Annalen der Physik 38, 662, 1896]
|
|
1896
|
Pieter Zeeman
(Netherlands).
Observed that the spectral lines emitted by an atomic
source are broadened when the source is placed in a
magnetic field.
|
|
1899
|
Lord Rayleigh (England). Explained the blue colour of the
sky and red sunsets as being due to the preferential scattering of blue
light by molecules in the earth's atmosphere.
[Phil. Mag. 47 , 375, 1899]
|
|
1899
|
Marie P A C
Fabry and Jean B G G A Perot (France).
Described the Fabry-Perot interferometer which enabled
high resolution observation of spectral features.
[C Fabry and A Perot. Ann.Chim.Phys. 16, p115, 1899]
|
|
1900
|
Max Karl Planck
(Germany).
In his successful explanation of the spectrum of radiation
emitted from a hot black body, Planck found it necessary
to introduce a universal constant described as the quantum
of action, now known as Planck's constant. A consequence
is that the energy of an oscillator is the sum of small
discrete units, each of which has a value that is proportional
to the frequency of oscillation.
|
|
1905
|
Albert Einstein
(Germany).
Explained the photoelectric effect on the basis that
light is quantized, the quanta subsequently becoming
known as photons.
[Annalen der Physik 17, p132, 1905]
[Annalen der Physik 20, p199, 1906]
|
|
1908
|
Gustav Mie
(Germany).
Presented a description of light scattering from particles
that are not small compared to the wavelength of light,
taking account of particle shape and the difference
in refractive index between the particles and the supporting
medium.
|
|
1913
|
Neils Henrik
David Bohr (Denmark).
Bohr advanced a theory of the atom in which the electrons
were presumed to occupy stable orbits with well-defined
energy. According to this theory, the absorption and
emission of light by an atom occurs as a result of an
electron moving from one orbit to another of different
energy. This allowed an explanation of the observation
that atoms absorb and emit light at particular frequencies
that are characteristic of the atom.
|
|
1915
|
William David
Coolidge (USA) Patented a method of making electric
lamp filaments from tungsten.
|
|
1916
|
Albert Einstein
(Germany).
Proposed that the stimulated emission of light is a
process that should occur in addition to absorption
and spontaneous emission.
|
|
1919
|
Sir Arthur
Eddington (England).
Observed the eclipse of the Sun on 29th May from Principe
Island
off the west coast of Africa
with the intention of determining the apparent position
of stars that appeared close to the Sun's disk. He concluded
that the path of light is bent by the Sun's gravitational
field in accordance with predictions of Einstein's theory
of General Relativity.
|
|
1926
|
A A Michelson
(USA). Performed a series of experiments to determine
the speed of light using a rotating mirror method with
a light path from the observatory at Mount Wilson to
a reflector on Mount San Antonio, a distance of 22 miles
(35 km). Obtained an average value of 299,796 km/s.
|
|
1926
|
John Logie Baird (England)
gave the world's first public demonstration of a working
television system that transmitted live moving images
with tone graduation (grayscale) on 26 January 1926
at his laboratory in London.
|
|
1927
|
Paul Adrien
Maurice Dirac (England).
Presented a method of representing the electromagnetic
radiation field in quantized form.
[Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 114, 243, 710,
1927]
|
|
1928
|
Chandrasekhara
Raman (India).
Observed weak ineleastic scattering of light from liquids,
an effect arisng from the scattering of light by vibrating
molecules and now known as Raman scattering.
[Indian J. Phys. 2 ,p387, 1928]
|
|
1929
|
Edwin Powell Hubble
(USA). Devised a classification system for the various
galaxies he observed, sorting them by content, distance, shape, and
brightness; it was then he noticed red-shifts in the emission of light
from the galaxies, seeing that they were moving away from each other at
a rate constant to the distance between them. From these
observations, he was able to formulate Hubble's Law, helping
astronomers determine the age of the universe, and proving that the
universe was expanding.
|
|
1932
|
P Debye and
F W Sears and also R Lucas and P Biquard independently
observed the diffraction of light by ultrasonic waves.
|
|
1932
|
E H Land (USA).
Invented "polaroid" polarizing film.
|
|
1934
|
Frits Zernicke
(Netherlands).
Described the phase-contrast microscope.
|
|
1939
|
Walter Geffcken
(Germany).
Described the transmission interference filter.
|
|
1941
|
W C Anderson.
Measured the speed of light using a Kerr cell to modulate
a light beam that passed through a Michelson interferometer.
Obtained a value of 299,776 km/s.
|
|
1946
|
First space
photographs from V-2 rockets.
|
|
1947
|
RCA introduced the
rear projection 648PTK television to overcome the small size of CRT's
at that time. This set had a "giant" 15 by 20 inch rectangular screen.
|
|
1948
|
Dennis Gabor
( b.Hungary). Described the principles of wavefront
reconstruction, later to become known as holography.
|
|
1948
|
Lord Partick
Maynard Stuart Blackett (England), Imperial College, London, Awarded the Nobel Prize for his development of the
Wilson cloud chamber method, and his discoveries
therewith in the fields of nuclear physics and cosmic radiation.
|
|
1953
|
Frits (Frederik) Zernike –
Nobel Prize in Physics "for his demonstration of the
phase contrast method, especially for his invention
of the phase contrast microscope".
|
|
1954
|
C H Townes, J P Gordon and H J Zieger (USA). In a paper entitled "Molecular
microwave oscillator and new hyperfine structures in the microwave
spectrum of NH3", they described a maser built
at Columbia University which used ammonia to produce
coherent microwave radiation.
[Physical Review. 95, p 282, 1954]
|
|
1955
|
On July 1, 1955 the Society of Photographic
Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) is founded to specialize in the
application of photo-optical instrumentation. The Society's first local
technical meeting is held in Los Angeles on August 8.
|
|
1957
|
Soviets launch the first orbiting
satellite, “Sputnik”, starting the space race.
|
|
1958
|
Arthur L Schawlow
and Charles H Townes (USA).
Published a paper entitled "Infrared and Optical Masers"
in which it was proposed that the maser principle could
be extended to the visible region of the spectrum to
give rise to what later became known as a 'laser'.
[Physical Review. 112(6), p1940, 1958]
|
|
1960’s
|
US begins
collection of intelligence photography from Earth orbiting satellites,
CORONA.
|
|
1960
|
Theodore H
Maiman (USA).
Described the first laser. The laser was built at the
Hughes Research Laboratories and used a rod of synthetic
ruby as the lasing medium.
[Nature. 187, p493, 1960]
|
|
1960
|
American U-2 spy
plane is "shot down" over Sverdlovsk, USSR while taking photographs of
military installations in the USSR.
|
|
1961
|
P A Franken,
A E Hill, C W Peters and G Weinreich. Demonstrated harmonic
generation from light by passing the pulse from a ruby
laser through a quartz crystal.
|
|
1961
|
Ali Javan,
W R Bennett and Donald R Harriott (USA).
Described the first gas laser. Built at the Bell Laboratories,
the lasing medium was a mixture of helium and neon and
emitted at wavelengths in the near infrared, the most
intense beam being at a wavelength of 1.153 um.
["Population inversion and continuous maser oscillation in a gas
discharge containing He-Ne mixtures", Physical Review Letters, 6,
p106, 1961]
|
|
1962
|
Four groups
in the United States
described the observation of stimuated emission from
homojunction gallium arsenide semiconductor diodes.
[M I Nathan et al, (IBM). Applied Physics Letters. 1,
p62, 1962]
[R N Hall et al, (GEC). Physical Review Letters. 9,
p366, 1962]
[T M Quist et al, (MIT). Applied Physics Letters. 1,
p91, 1962]
[N Holonyak and S F Bevacqua, (GEC). Applied
Physics Letters. 1, p82, 1962]
|
|
1962
|
Zaitor and Tsuprun
construct prototype nine lens multispectral camera permitting
nine different film-filter combinations Also during this year
our country came very close to nuclear war when military intelligence
photography was brought into the lime light by the Cuban Missile
Crisis.
|
|
1963
|
Kumar Patel
(USA,
b India).
Announced the development of the first carbon dioxide
laser at Bell Laboratories.
|
|
1964
|
William B Bridges
(USA).
Built the first ion lasers at Hughes Research Laboratories.
["Visible and uv laser oscillation at 118 wavelengths
in ionized neon, argon, krypton, oxygen and other gases"
W B Bridges and Arthur N Chester, Applied Optics, 4,
p573, 1965]
|
|
1964
|
Jerome V V
Kasper and George C Pimentel (USA).
Described the photodissociation Iodine laser, built
at the University
of California,
Berkeley,
in which a population inversion in atomic iodine was
produced by the photodissociation of either CF3I
or CH3I. The laser output was in the near
infrared at a wavelength of 1.315 um.
[Applied Physics Letters. 5(11), p231, 1964]
|
|
1966
|
Sorokin and
J R Lankard. Built the first organic dye laser.
|
|
1967/69
|
S L McCall
and E L Hahn (USA).
Described studies of the propagation of very short optical
pulses through a medium consisting of resonant two level
atoms, developing in the process the criteria to be
satisfied by the shape of the pulse so that it would
propagate as an optical solution (the area theorem)
and describing the propagation mechanism of self-induced
transparency (SIT).
[Physical Review Letters, 18, p908, 1967]
[Physical Review, 183, p457, 1969]
|
|
1971
|
John M J Madey
(USA).
In a paper entitled "Stimulated emission of bremsstrahlung
in a periodic magnetic field", Madey outlined the principles
of the free electron laser.
[Journal of Applied Physics, 42, p1906, 1971]
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|
1975
|
Hänsch and
Schawlow made the important suggestion that it
was possible to use the strong velocity dependence of the
scattering force due to Doppler shift for the optical cooling
or damping of atomic motions.
|
|
1976
|
John M J Madey
(USA). A group at Stanford University demonstrated the
first free electron laser (FEL).
|
|
1984
|
R E Fischer
(USA).
Elected President of SPIE, The International Society
for Optical Engineering.
|
|
1985
|
D L Matthews
et al (USA).
Described x-ray laser experiments at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory in which amplified spontaneous emission
was observed at wavelengths around 20nm.
["Demonstration of a soft x-ray amplifier", Physical Review Letters.
54, p110, 1985]
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|
1986
|
Gerd Binnig (Germany). Awarded
the Nobel Prize in Physics for his scanning tunneling microscope. With this invention, the nanotech era in
imaging was launched by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Roher from the IBM
Zurich Research Laboratory.
|
|
1987
|
R E Fischer
(USA), established OPTICS 1, Inc. as an optics research
and development company in Westlake Village California.
|
|
1990
|
The Hubble
space telescope was positioned in a low Earth orbit
on 25th April, 1990.
|
|
1990
|
Bell Labs
transmitted a 2.5 Gb/s signal over 7,500 km of optical fiber without
regeneration.
|
|
1993
|
Texas Instruments
creates the “DLP Display”, Digital Light Processor,
a matrix of microscopic mirrors using semiconductor manufacturing
techniques.
|
|
1995
|
A new class of intelligence satellite is
being developed. The new satellite code named
8x is said to be a major upgrade of the KH-12 spy satellite.
The satellite which may weigh as much as twenty tons
will be able to acquire intricately detailed images
of areas as large as 1,000 square miles of the Earth's
surface.
|
|
1997
|
Steven Chu
awarded the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in optical
tweezing in his work on cooling and trapping atoms. Steven Chu
described how Askhin had first envisioned optical tweezing as a method
for trapping atoms. Ashkin was able to trap larger particles (10 to
10,000 nanometers in diameter) but it fell to Chu to extend these techniques to the trapping of
atoms (0.1 nanometers in diameter).
|
|
2000
|
R E Fischer (USA),
first publication of “Optical System Design” by
McGraw Hill, the industry’s “easy to use”
text on optics and system design.
|
|
2001
|
I. Hartl, X. D. Li, C. Chudoba, R. K. Ghanta,
T. H. Ko, J. G. Fujimoto, J. K. Ranka, and R. S. Windeler,
experiments demonstrate Ultrahigh-resolution OCT (optical
coherence tomography) for the first time , Opt. Lett.
26, 608-610 (2001).
|
|
2003
|
Optical Camouflage System invented by Susumu
Tachi, Masahiko Inami, and Naoki Kawakami.
|
|
2004
|
After the Columbia disaster, NASA desperately needed a
boost, a success that would restore people's faith in space
exploration. This year the agency got two: the twin Mars Exploration
rovers returned spectacular pictures.
|
|
2005
|
OPTICS
1, Inc. ships commercial “Holographic Optical
Tweezing” (HOT) box.
|
|
2006
|
The new Optical
SETI telescope at the Oak Ridge Observatory in Harvard, Massachusetts,
was inaugurated on April 11, 2006.
|
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2007
|
OPTICS
1, Inc. celebrates 20th Anniversary.
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