Charles Townes (born 1915). Portrait of the American physicist Charles Hard Townes. Townes is best known for his investigations into electrical and magnetic interactions within molecules, which led to his design of the maser, an intense source of microwaves and precursor to the laser. This work earned him a share of the 1964 Nobel Prize for Physics. He was also active in developing microwave and infrared astronomical techniques, and was co-discoverer of the first interstellar polyatomic molecules, in 1961.