Old Commercial Injection Laser
Just came across a brochure for the Korad K-S1 Gallium Arsenide laser, one of (if not the) first commercially available semiconductor lasers. There isn't a date on it anywhere, but I have another reference to it, a "new product" announcement from the "Laser Newsletter" (Lowrey-Cocroft), March 1964, so I guesstimate it from near then.
Also mentioned in that same issue of "Laser Newsletter" is an announcement for the Philco model GAE-404. These are the two earliest semiconductor lasers I've found mentioned, with the Texas Instruments model SNX-110 coming a month later.
I find it ironic that the very first diode lasers had output powers in the 1W class. Handheld blue from a battery is a loooong way from liquid nitrogen cooled IR!
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