Nikolay Basov

{{Infobox scientist

| native_name = {{nobold|Николай Басов}}

| native_name_lang = ru

| image = Basov.jpg

| caption = Basov in 1964

| birth_name = Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov

| birth_date = {{birth date|1922|12|14|df=y}}[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nikolay-Basov Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov]. Encyclopaedia Britannica

| birth_place = Usman, Tambov Governorate, Russian SFSR

| death_date = {{death date and age|2001|7|1|1922|12|14|df=y}}

| death_place = Moscow, Russia

| resting_place = Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow

| field = Physics

| alma_mater = Moscow Engineering Physics Institute

| doctoral_students =

| work_institution = Lebedev Physical Institute

| known_for = Invention of lasers and masers

| spouse = Ksenia Tikhonovna Basova{{cite web | url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1964/basov/biographical/ | title=The Nobel Prize in Physics 1964 }}

| children = Dimitri Basov (physics professor at Columbia University)

| prizes = {{nowrap|Nobel Prize in Physics {{small|(1964)}}
Kalinga Prize {{small|(1986)}}
Lomonosov Gold Medal {{small|(1989)}}
Edward Teller Award{{small|1991)}} }}

}}

Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov ({{langx|ru|Никола́й Генна́диевич Ба́сов}}; 14 December 1922 – 1 July 2001) was a Russian Soviet physicist and educator. For his fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics that led to the development of laser and maser, Basov shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with Alexander Prokhorov and Charles Hard Townes.{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20100926022159/http://i-lasers.com/basov.html "Basov Nikolay Gennadiyevich"]}}

Early life

Basov was born in the town of Usman, now in Lipetsk Oblast in 1922. He finished school in 1941 in Voronezh, and was later called for military service at Kuibyshev Military Medical Academy. In 1943 he left the academy and served in the Red Army participating in the Second World War with the 1st Ukrainian Front.

Professional career

Basov graduated from Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI) in 1950. He then held a professorship at MEPhI and also worked in the Lebedev Physical Institute (LPI), where he defended a dissertation for the Candidate of Sciences degree (equivalent to PhD) in 1953 and a dissertation for the Doctor of Sciences degree in 1956. Basov was the Director of the LPI in 1973–1988. He was elected as corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Russian Academy of Sciences since 1991) in 1962 and Full Member of the Academy in 1966. In 1967, he was elected a Member of the Presidium of the Academy (1967—1990), and since 1990 he was the councillor of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1971 he was elected a Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.[http://www.leopoldina.org/en/members/list-of-members/member/1815/ List of Members]. Leopoldina.org. Retrieved on 30 July 2020. He was Honorary President and Member of the International Academy of Science, Munich.International Academy of Science (1989) [http://www.ias-icsd.org/resources/ICSD-IAS-Founding-Members-1989.pdf Selection of IAS-ICSD Founding Members]. [http://www.ias-icsd.org/history.html History – International Academy of Science, Munich]. Ias-icsd.org. Retrieved on 30 July 2020. He was the head of the laboratory of quantum radiophysics at the LPI until his death in 2001.

In the early 1950s Basov and Prokhorov developed theoretical grounds for creation of a molecular oscillator and constructed such an oscillator based on ammonia. Later this oscillator became known as maser. They also proposed a method for the production of population inversion using inhomogeneous electric and magnetic fields. Their results were presented at a national conference in 1952 and published in 1954. Basov then proceeded to the development of laser, an analogous generator of coherent light. In 1955 he designed a three-level laser, and in 1959 suggested constructing a semiconductor laser, which he built with collaborators in 1963. Basov with co-workers proposed Disk laser in 1966 {{cite journal |title=Semiconductor lasers with radiating mirrors

|journal=IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics|volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=9 B4 |year=1966|last1= Basov |first1=N G|last2=Bogdankevich |first2= OV|last3=Grasiuk |first3= AZ|doi=10.1109/JQE.1966.1073948|bibcode=1966IJQE....2Q.154B }} and realized experimentally the thin disk active mirror semiconductor lasers.{{cite journal |title=Semiconductor electron-beam-pumped lasers of the radiating mirror type

|journal=IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics|volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=342–347|year=1973|last1=Bogdankevich |first1= OV|last2=Darznek |first2= SA|last3= Pechenov|first3= A N|last4=Vasiliev|first4= BI|last5=Zverev |first5= MM|doi=10.1109/JQE.1973.1077470|bibcode=1973IJQE....9..342B }}

He developed with colleaguaes the first nonlinear theory of coherent addition of laser sets.

{{cite book |doi=10.1117/12.160374 |s2cid=110333595 |chapter=Diffraction synchronization of lasers |title=CIS Selected Papers: High-Power Multibeam Lasers and Their Phase Locking |date=1993 |editor-last1=Lebedev |editor-first1=Fedor V. |last1=Basov |first1=Nikolai G. |last2=Belenov |first2=E. M. |last3=Letokhov |first3=Vladilen S. |series=Proceedings of SPIE |volume=2109 |pages=134–144 |editor-first2=Anatoly P. |editor-last2=Napartovich }} N.G.Basov encouraged the researchers in nonlinear optics in Lebedev Institute who discovered the optical phase conjugation.

{{cite journal |title=Connection Between the Wave Fronts of the Reflected and Exciting Light in Stimulated Mandel'shtem-Brillouin Scattering |journal=Sov. Phys. JETP Lett.|volume=15 |issue=6 |pages=109 |year=1972

|last1= Zel'dovich |first1= B Ya

|last2= Popovichev |first2=V I

|last3= Ragul'skii |first3=V V

|last4= Faizullov |first4= F S

|bibcode=1972JETPL..15..109Z}}

Together with Lebedev Institute researchers he realized the robust method of the phase-locking of laser arrays via optical phase conjugation in Stimulated Brillouin scattering.{{cite journal |title=Laser interferometer with wavefront reversing mirrors

|last1= Basov |first1=N G

|last2= Zubarev |first2=I G

|last3= Mironov |first3=A B

|last4= Michailov |first4= S I

|last5= Okulov |first5= A Yu

|bibcode=1980ZhETF..79.1678B}}

{{cite journal |title=Brillouin-enhanced four-wave-mixing vector phase-conjugate mirror with beam-combining capability

|last1= Bowers |first1=M W

|last2= Boyd |first2=R W

|last3= Hankla |first3=A K

|doi=10.1364/OL.22.000360|pmid=18183201|bibcode=1997OptL...22..360B|s2cid=25530526 }}

Basov's contributions to the development of the laser and maser, which won him the Nobel Prize in 1964, also led to new missile defense initiatives.[https://books.google.com/books?id=fnqN-1UaNI4C "Soviet ballistic missile defense and the Western alliance"], David Scott Yost. Harvard University Press, 1988. {{ISBN|0-674-82610-8}}, {{ISBN|978-0-674-82610-6}}. p. 58

He died on 1 July, 2001 at Moscow and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery.

Politics

He entered politics in 1951{{clarify|date=December 2012}} and became a member of parliament (the Soviet of the Union of the Supreme Soviet) in 1974.[https://books.google.com/books?id=3-G3vi5av28C "A century of Nobel Prizes recipients: chemistry, physics, and medicine"], Francis Leroy. CRC Press, 2003. {{ISBN|0-8247-0876-8}}, {{ISBN|978-0-8247-0876-4}}. p. 174-175 Following U.S. President Ronald Reagan's speech on SDI in 1983, Basov signed a letter along with other Soviet scientists condemning the initiative, which was published in the New York Times.[https://books.google.com/books?id=J6cx2ZOixcYC "The strategic defence initiative: US policy and the Soviet Union"], Mira Duric. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2003. {{ISBN|0-7546-3733-6}}, {{ISBN|978-0-7546-3733-2}}. p. 43-45 In 1985 he declared the Soviet Union was capable of matching SDI proposals made by the U.S.

Books

N. G. Basov, K. A. Brueckner (Editor-in-Chief), S. W. Haan, C. Yamanaka. Inertial Confinement Fusion, 1992, Research Trends in Physics Series published by the American Institute of Physics Press (presently [https://web.archive.org/web/20050323204949/http://www.springer-sbm.de/index.php?id=121&L=0 Springer], New York). {{ISBN|0-88318-925-9}}.
V. Stefan and N. G. Basov (Editors). Semiconductor Science and Technology, Volume 1. Semiconductor Lasers. (Stefan University Press Series on Frontiers in Science and Technology) (Paperback), 1999. {{ISBN|1-889545-11-2}}.
V. Stefan and N. G. Basov (Editors). Semiconductor Science and Technology, Volume 2: Quantum Dots and Quantum Wells. (Stefan University Press Series on Frontiers in Science and Technology) (Paperback), 1999. {{ISBN|1-889545-12-0}}.

Awards and honours

File:Nicolay Basov and Aleksandr Prokhorov with wives 1964.jpg

File:Nikolay Basov 2022 stamp of Russia.jpg

Lenin Prize (1959)
Nobel Prize in Physics (1964, with the pioneering work done in the field of quantum electronics)
Hero of Socialist Labour — twice (1969, 1982)
Gold Medal of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (1975)
A. Volta Gold Medal (1977)
Kalinga Prize (1986)
USSR State Prize (1989)
Lomonosov Grand Gold Medal, Moscow State University (1990)
Order of Lenin – five times
Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 2nd class
Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd class

References

External links

[http://novodevichye.com/basov/ Basov's grave]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20010824104541/http://nature.ru/db/msg.html?mid=1165378&s=120000000 Detailed biography] {{in lang|ru}}
{{Nobelprize}} including the Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1964 Semiconductor Lasers
[https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/4495 Oral History interview transcript with Nikolay Basov on 14 September 1984, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives]

Category:1922 births

Category:2001 deaths

Category:People from Usman, Russia

Category:Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences

Category:Full Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Category:Foreign members of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Category:Foreign fellows of the Indian National Science Academy

Category:Heroes of Socialist Labour

Category:Recipients of the Lenin Prize

Category:Nobel laureates in Physics

Category:Recipients of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 2nd class

Category:Soviet Nobel laureates