Pre-holography Laser Documentation

[Eidetic]

In the written histories of holography, the time between the invention of the laser and the first holograms by Leith & Upatnieks is ignored. A lot happened in those "Camelot" days of the Kennedy administration, and I love it when artifacts from that time show up. Today I got four pieces of documentation from then. The first is a 70 page market analysis titled "Basic Maser And Laser Technology" by G.E. Marak. Written in the spring of 1962, it very thoroughly surveys the laser industry before He-Ne gave a visible beam, before semiconductor or CO2 lasers, and before holograms were made with lasers. Amazing synopsis of the first few years of the laser industry that now surrounds us. I've included pics of the index, and a page describing predictions of progress made in that year of "the right stuff".

The second is a reprint of a paper titled "High-Energy Lasers" by Peter Franken, published in October, 1962. It includes a picture of the telescope and apparatus used by him and a group from the University of Michigan to bounce a laser beam off the moon. Lloyd Cross was also on the team, supporting the laser he supplied from his Trion Instruments. This is the first documentation of the project I've only heard about from Don Gillespie (who was also on the team I think). He said MIT beat them only because of the bad weather in Ann Arbor.

The third is a picture of Arnold Bloom and Earl Bell who started Spectra-Physics. It's with an article about the first wavelength tunable laser they built, the Spectra-Physics model 116. I have a meeting coming up with John Ekstrand of S-P, who's been there since about '64. I'm really hoping he has one of these lasers!

The fourth is a brochure from Lear/Siegler, who bought Trion Instruments from Lloyd Cross and friends in the middle of '62. It includes the first reference I've seen to a He-Ne made by them, and a bunch of good pictures of their systems. Lloyd used the money he got from the sale of Trion to fund his move into laser light show projectors with his "Sonovision", and holography.

The market analysis included the other three pieces. I found it on Amazon. A couple times a year I search through there for books about lasers. This one was given a date of 1970, so I took a shot. They must've just guessed! Another nugget for the Vintage Laser Archive.