  The maser, older sibling of the laser, has been confined to relative
obscurity due to its reliance on cryogenic refrigeration and high-vacuum
systems. Despite this it has found application in deep-space communications and
radio astronomy due to its unparalleled performance as a low-noise amplifier
and oscillator. The recent demonstration of a room-temperature solid- state
maser exploiting photo-excited triplet states in organic pentacene molecules
paves the way for a new class of maser that could find applications in
medicine, security and sensing, taking advantage of its sensitivity and low
noise. However, to date, only pulsed operation has been observed in this
system. Furthermore, organic maser molecules have poor thermal and mechanical
properties, and their triplet sub-level decay rates make continuous emission
challenging: alternative materials are therefore required. Therefore, inorganic
materials containing spin-defects such as diamond and silicon carbide have been
proposed. Here we report a continuous-wave (CW) room-temperature maser
oscillator using optically pumped charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect centres
in diamond. This demonstration unlocks the potential of room-temperature
solid-state masers for use in a new generation of microwave devices.
