Gas Laser Pioneer Dies
HAVERFORD, Pa, July 7, 2008 -- William R. Bennett Jr., a physicist and inventor who helped develop the first gas laser nearly 50 years ago at Bell Laboratories, died on June 29, at his home in Haverford, Pa, at the age of 78.
Bennett and a team of researchers, including Donald R. Herriott and Ali Javan, assembled the very first gas laser by trapping helium and neon in a pressurized tube. They then agitated the gases’ atoms with an electrical current. Both ends of the tube were fixed with mirrors that redirected the...