A physicist, Schawlow designed the Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation — the laser — with Dr. Charles H. Townes, based on Towne’s earlier microwave amplifier, the maser.
Schawlow’s breakthrough, an “echo chamber” for light based on an artificial ruby, was the key. Townes and Schawlow, working in Townes’ lab at Columbia University (though Schawlow actually worked for Bell Labs), published their work in 1958. The first working device sprang to light on May 16, 1960, in Malibu, Calif.
Schawlow shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics for contributions to the development of laser spectroscopy. He died April 28 in Palo Alto, Calif., from congestive heart failure, a complication of leukemia. He was 77.