>> I know of one device where Bell was instrumental, and that was
>> centimeter and millimeter RADAR. The British may have invented the
>> magnetron, but Bell invented the MASER.
>> That MASER btw spawned the 802.11G wireless system I use. Let's not
>> forget the earlier development of the transistor, or the later
>> development of the ruby LASER.
> Charles Townes, Columbia university faculty member, invented and built
> the first man-made maser/laser device of any type (mm-wave ammonia
> maser oscillator/atomic clock), at Columbia, in 1951-1954.
Townes was a Bell Labs alum.
Nico Bloembergen at Harvard invented the microwave solid-state maser
> (first one with any potential usefulness in radar) at Harvard in 1956.
> Bell Labs built first working version that same year, not long after
> hearing of/seeing (advance?) copy of Bloembergen's initial
> publication.
> First succesful (ruby) laser was invented and operated by Ted Maiman
> at Hughes Research Labs, Malibu in 1960, pretty much totally
> independently of (and to the substantial surprise of) the ongoing East
> Coast and Bell Labs efforts to make a laser.
> Second and third lasers (both solid-state) were made shortly
> thereafter by Sorokin et al at IBM Yorktown. Bell Labs the fourth
> (but first gas) laser just at the very end of 1960.
>
Most of the inventors of those devices got their start at Bell Labs.