Laser physics

Ali Javan: inventions and patents

Known for Helium-neon gas laserNationality Born in Tehran, Iran, came to the United States in 194826 December 1926 to 12 September 2016

Ali Javan, born in Tehran, came to the United States in 1948 and earned a PhD in physics from Columbia University in 1954. At Bell Labs he conceived the gas laser principle, which led to the helium-neon laser. The National Inventors Hall of Fame describes the gas laser as the first continuous-light laser and inducted him in 2006. He and William R. Bennett Jr. are named inventors on US Patent 3,149,290 for a gas optical maser, assigned to Bell Telephone Laboratories.^1,2

Patents

US 3,149,290^2,1

Gas optical maser

Filed: 28 December 1960
Granted: 15 September 1964
Assignee: Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc.
Co-inventors: William R. Bennett Jr., Donald R. Herriott (added as joint inventor by a certificate of correction dated 22 December 1970)

View the patent document

Inventions

Helium-neon laser. A gas laser producing continuous light. The Hall of Fame says it made holography practical and is used in UPC code checkout scanners, and links continuous light to telecommunications through fibre optics.¹

Recognition

1993 Albert Einstein World Medal of Science¹
2006 Inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame¹

Sources

National Inventors Hall of Fame, Ali Javan (accessed 2026-10-27)
Google Patents, US3149290A Gas optical maser (accessed 2026-10-27)