Family of noble gas masers operates at 14 different frequencies

Five new gaseous optical masers, each using a different pure noble gas as the active medium, have been developed by scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratories. The masers, made of helium, neon, argon, krypton, and xenon, emit continuous beams of coherent radiation at a total of 14 different frequencies. The availability of this variety of frequencies represents a major step in advancing optical maser technology.