Why do we never hear about teraherz lasers?

Question

Masers (microwave lasers) have been around since the early 1950s.  Lasers were invented in 1958.  So we've had the technology to make teraherz lasers for more than 50 years.  We're only now starting to develop other aspects of teraherz technology, like cameras that can view your internal organs without zapping you with Xrays.  Why aren't there any lasers in the 10^-5 metre wavelength range?  They'd be bloody useful.

s · Accepted Answer

Interesting question.

For the wikipedia reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser

it appears that there is growing interest to investigate the possibilities of new applications, but like many millimeter to nanometer wavelength products, it may be limited by power cosumption from Planck's constant equation.

The team in England has developed the first solid-state prototype maser only last year, but it too is not portable, yet. So there is alot of work yet to be done just in perfecting the solid-state physics for masers.
http://www.gizmag.com/solid-state-maser/23750/

Also, like many sciences, there are discoveries and then there are practical applications. Sometimes they are limitedby costs and sometimtes by market acceptance or market needs. And many technologies looking for an application, it's time has not come - yet.

Keep in mind that Gorilla glass was discovered by Corning almost 50 years ago and it took until only a few years ago to find it's role in cell phones as a 'killer application'. The same thing is true for touchscreen technology, until apple found a niche for it on their iphone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla_glass
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_screen

What do you recommend a practical application for its use?

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Why do we never hear about teraherz lasers?

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