PSU Magazine Spring 1988

Article by Joli A. Sandoz Photographs by Clarence Hein D ust motes drift through narrow beams of bright green light lacing across a table top. Run– ning water gurgles gently against the back wall. This PSU lab is an oasis of calm in the midst of the Friday after– noon traffic outside. But the peaceful mood belies the intensity of research taking place here. PSU electrical engineering pro– fessor Dr. Lee Cas– person and his doctoral students, aided by a post– doctoral fellow and drop-in scientists visiting from around the world, are focusing on a light-emitting device revolutionizing industry, surgery and communication technology - the laser. "Whatever is subtle and mysterious about lasers is what we're interested in," says Casperson. "Our goal is to understand." Casperson's drive created PSU's sophisticated laser research lab in 1985 with a grant from the Oregon High Technology/ Education Consor– tium, and it has received more than $500,000 of support during the last three years, much of it from the pres– tigious National Science Foundation. A number of projects which may ulti– mately affect the way the world uses lasers are underway. An 80 year old woman sits unmoving, her head strapped into a complex metal PSU MAGAZINE PAGE4 ARGON DYE LASER frame, while a surgeon carefully seals off the veins which have been bleeding into the back of her eye. At a plant near Los Angeles, titanium heat shields destined for fighter aircraft are trimmed to precise specifications. A U.S. serviceman based in Spain calls home to Oregon and hears that his latest baby is a girl. And in a PSU lab, researchers routinely create an instant of light that is one of the briefest observable events in the universe. The common theme? Lasers. Predicted in principle by Albert Einstein as early as 1916, the first suc– cessful laser was built in 1960, when a researcher bombarding bits of ruby with intense flashes of light suddenly realized that the ruby had begun to glow. The meaning of the acronym LASER, which stands for "Light