Gordon Gould

Gordon Gould ( July 17, 1920 in New York City; † September 16, 2005 ) was an American physicist and is regarded as one of the inventors of the laser.

Gould studied at Union College (Bachelor 1941) and at Yale University (Master 's degree in optical spectroscopy 1943). After military service in World War II, he decided to become an inventor, designed a kind of contact lens and focused on the production of synthetic diamonds. From 1949 he studied at Columbia University to 1951 to work on his dissertation when Polycarp Kusch ( on the spectroscopy of thallium atoms in molecular beams ), but only slowly progressed and he took his time, his ideas for the laser ( the transfer of the maser principle to higher frequencies using mirrors, a Fabry-Perot ). After he had in 1957 received a call from Charles Townes, who inquired about his thallium lamps, he hastened by a notary seal these laboratory records ( the owner of a candy store ) and let notarize (16 November 1957). This also included numerous possible applications and more pumping mechanisms (including collisions in a gas ). Since Gould but only wanted to explore the practical realization, he handed then a no patent.

In 1957, Gould coined the term " LASER " ( = Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation ), who won in the end, though, for example, Bell Laboratories long clung to the name Optical Maser.

In 1958 he left the Columbia University without a doctorate, as Kush did not want to accept as a replacement for the original theme for his work on lasers. He joined the company Technical Research Group Inc. (TRG ), a small engineering company founded in 1953, where he continued to work on his laser project, but without ever making an attempt to publish his ideas in a scientific journal. His laser proposals but were taken over by TRG, who studied, among others in missile defense and for laser research nearly $ 1 million from the ARPA received ( appraiser was Townes ). Since the project was, however, classified as secret, Gould received no secret support classification as a former Marxist, Gould could even participate to his chagrin at TRG only as a consultant. TRG filed the patent for the laser in April 1959, later. Schawlow and Townes as who did this in July 1958, and U.S. patent in 1960 received Several patents filed by Gould in the UK have been issued against it. Gould and TRG processed against the non-issuance of the U.S. patent on the grounds to have the idea in 1957 laid down in the said notebook. Your first process they lost in 1965. Gould but the dispute did not cease and settled back also override the patents again after Control Data Corporation TRG had taken over. One part he wrote about the New York patent law firm refAC to finance his lawsuit, and another part later to the company Patlex.

In 1977, Gould received after a long legal battle (since 1959 ) but still several lucrative patents for optically - pumped laser amplifier and a number of other applications of the laser. However, the litigation continued for a while continue, as many laser manufacturers initially refused to pay the relatively high cost of licenses, the required Goulds partners. Around 1987, however, he prevailed with its partners. Him the patent for the gas discharge laser was awarded in 1989.

From 1967 to 1973 he was professor at the Polytechnic University of New York, which he gave up when he founded Optelecom, a company for data communication technologies over fiber optics.