The LIA timeline represents significant events that demonstrate advances in laser technologies. Since the 1960s the laser has come a long way, just like our very own members.

Timeline

• 1960
  Theodore Maiman demonstrates the laser using a ruby crystal in his laboratory.
• 1964
  Arthur Schawlow shares Nobel Prize in Physics for invention of the laser; initiates program of radio and infrared astronomy at University of California, Berkeley.
• 1968
  The Laser Institute of America is founded, previously known as the Laser Industry Association.

• 1970
  Nikolai Basov, V. A. Danyilychev, and Yu M. Popov create the excimer laser which became popular in lithography machines, and later on used in the medical field.
• 1976
  LAGEOS-1 is launched, consisting of 2 satellites, each is a high-density passive laser reflector.
• 1979
  Gordon Gould receives a patent covering a broad range of laser applications.

• 1982
  CDs debut. Originally used for video technology, CDs are used for audio.
• 1985
  Green-emitting helium-neon lasers are introduced by Melles Griot.
• 1988
  North America and Europe are linked by first fiber-optic cable.

• 1994
  The Quantum Cascade (QC) laser is invented at Bell Labs by Jerome Faist, Federico Capasso, Deborah L. Sivco, Carlo Sirtori, Albert L. Hutchinson and Alfred Y. Cho.
• 1996
  The first pulsed atom laser, which uses matter instead of light, is demonstrated at MIT by Wolfgang Ketterle.
• 1997
  Mars Global Surveyor, carrying the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, reaches Mars and begins mapping the planet's surface with a laser radar.

• 2004
  Electronic switching in a Raman laser is demonstrated for the first time by Ozdal Boyraz and Bahram Jalali of UCLA.
• 2009
  Laser market valued at nearly $6 billion.
• 2009
  NASA launches LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter), it uses lasers to gather data about the high and low points on the moon.

• 2010
  Short-pulse lasers are announced by Alfred Leitenstorfer and his research group from the University of Konstanz.
• 2010
  Rainer Blatt and Piet O. Schmidt, along with their team, demonstrate a single-atom laser.
• 2014
  Founding Father Dr. Charles Hard Townes passes away at the age of 99.