biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1920– )
|
| biography:
| Physicist, inventor, and manufacturer, born in New York City, New York, USA. He studied at Union College, New York (1941 BS), and did graduate work in physics at Yale, leaving to work on the atomic bomb for the Manhattan Project during World War 2 (1943–5). In the postwar years he worked for various private engineering firms while teaching at different institutions, including City College of New York (1947–54), Columbia University (1954–7), and Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (1967–74). While working at Columbia with Charles Townes and others, he contributed to the development of the laser. He would claim greater credit for the laser than others have been willing to grant him, but he was named inventor of the year (1978) by the Patent Office Society for his laser amplifier, and he holds patents on many of the laser devices used for industrial and medical applications. In 1974 he founded Optelecom Inc, which specializes in optical communications, retiring from the firm in 1985. |
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