A very early example of a raygun is the Heat-Ray featured in H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (1898).[1] Science fiction as far back as the 1920s depicted death rays. Early science fiction often showed raygun beams making bright light and loud noise like lightning or large electric arcs. Nikola Tesla's attempts at developing directed-energy weapons, or "death rays", also fueled the imagination of many writers.
After the invention of the laser in 1960, it briefly became the death ray of choice for science fiction writers. For instance, characters in the Lost in Space TV series (1965–1968) and in the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage (1964) carried handheld laser weapons.[2]
By the late 1960s and 1970s, as the laser's limits as a weapon became evident, rayguns were redubbed "phasers" (in Star Trek), "blasters" (Star Wars), "pulse rifles", "plasma rifles" and so forth.