Alexander Prokhorov
Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov (Russian Александр Михайлович Прохоров, scientific transliteration Aleksandr Prokhorov Michajlovič, English transliteration Prokhorov, born July 11, 1916 in Atherton, Australia, † 8 January 2002 in Moscow) was a Soviet physicist.
Life and work
Prokhorov's parents went back in 1923 in the Soviet Union, where he studied at the State University of Saint Petersburg among others, Vladimir Fock from 1934. In 1939 he graduated and went to the Lebedev Institute in Moscow to the laboratory for vibrations of Nikolai Papaleksi. During World War II he was a soldier, but returned after a second wounding in 1944 to the Lebedev Institute back. In 1946 he completed his doctorate there with a theoretical study on frequency stabilization in a tube oscillator. In 1947 he studied at the suggestion of Weksler ( the inventor of the synchrotron in Russia) coherent synchrotron radiation for his dissertation. From 1950 he was deputy director of the Laboratory for Research on vibration Lebedev Institute ( under Mikhail Aleksandrovich Leontovich ), and from 1954 director. He was also a professor at the Moscow State University. In 1955 he developed there with Basov the concept of optical pumping and the maser principle. At the Institute various masers were built in the 1950s. As part of the investigation of electron spin resonance spectra of ruby he discovered in 1957 its potential as a laser material and suggested in 1958 the construction of a ruby laser before, but which was first realized by Theodore Maiman in 1960. Parallel work on the development of the maser and laser took place in the United States by Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow.
1971 to 1990 he was editor of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (in which he insisted Andrei Sakharov take, as this had long been officially outlawed ). 1973 to 1991 he was deputy director of the Lebedev Institute and is also Chairman of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. 1983 to 1998 he was director of the Institute of Physics and Technology (Institute of General Physics ) in Moscow, then until his death in 2001, Honorary Director.
He was married to Galina Shelepina and had a son.
Awards
- Prokhorov received in 1964 along with Charles H. Townes and Nikolay Basov the Nobel Prize in Physics " for fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics that led to the base of the maser - laser principle to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers ."
- 1987 Lomonosov Gold Medal of the Soviet Academy of Sciences
- In 2001 he was awarded the Demidov Prize.
- After his death the Institute of General Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences was named after him.
- Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina - National Academy of Sciences
- AM Prokhorov (Editor), JM Buzzi, P. Sprangle and K. Wille: Coherent Radiation Generation and Particle Acceleration, 1992, ISBN 0-88318-926-7. Research Trends in Physics Series, American Institute of Physics Press
- V. Stefan and AM Prokhorov (Editor): Diamond Science and Technology. 2 volumes, Stefan University Press, ( Series on Frontiers in Science and Technology ), 1999. ISBN 1-889545-23-6 (Volume 1), ISBN 1-889545-24-4 ( Volume 2 )