Theodore Harold Maiman (born 11.07.1927) is an American physicist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was born in Los Angeles. He graduated from the University of Colorado (1949), and in 1955 he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Stanford University. In 1962 he founded his own company, Korad Corporation, for the research and production of lasers.
His work concerned the study of stimulated emission and the improvement of masers and lasers. In 1960 he invented the first optical quantum generator — the ruby laser — being the first to obtain coherent electromagnetic radiation in the visible range at the 0.7 μm line, and in doing so using an open-type resonator, the three-level method of excitation and a crystal of artificial ruby. In 1961 he constructed a theory of the laser effect.