Nicolay g. Basov

Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov was born on December, 14, 1922 in a small town near Voronezh. His father was a professor of the Voronezh Forest Institute.

After finishing secondary school in 1941 in Voronezh Basov was called up for military service. In December 1945, he entered the Moscow Institute of Physical Engineers where he studied theoretical and experimental physics.

In 1950 Basov joined the P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, where he was vice-director and head of the laboratory of quantum radiophysics. He is also a professor of the department of solid-state physics at the Moscow Institute of Physical Engineers.

In 1956 he defended his doctoral thesis on the theme "A Molecular Oscillator", which summed up the theoretical and experimental works on creation of a molecular oscillator utilizing an ammonia beam.

In 1955 Basov organized a group for the investigation of the frequency stability of molecular oscillators. Together with his pupils and collaborators Dr. Basov studied the dependence of the oscillator frequency on different parameters. In the result of these investigations the oscillators with a frequency stability of 10^-11 have been realized in 1962.

In 1957 Basov started to work on the design and construction of quantum oscillators in the optical range. A group of theorists and research workers began to study the possibilities for realization of quantum oscillators by means of semiconductors, and the possibility of their realization in the gas media was also investigated.

In 1964 semiconductor lasers with electronic excitation have been made and somewhat later, lasers with optical excitation were constructed. For these achievements a group of scientists of Lebedev Physical Institute was awarded the Lenin Prize for 1964.

Beginning from 1961 Dr. Basov carried out theoretical and experimental research in the field of powerful lasers.

In 1962 N.G. Basov and O.N. Krokhin investigated the possibility of laser radiation usage for the obtaining of thermonuclear plasmas. In 1968 Basov and his associates have succeeded in observing for the first time neutron emission in the laser-produced deuterium plasmas. In the same year N.G. Basov and his associate A.N. Oraevsky proposed a method of the thermal laser excitation. Further theoretical considerations of this method by N.G. Basov, A.N. Oraevsky and V.A. Sheglov encouraged the development of the so-called gasdynamic lasers.

In 1963 Dr. Basov and his colleagues began to work in the field of optoelectronics. They developed in 1967 a number of fast-operating logic elements on the basis of diode lasers.

A large contribution has been made by Dr. Basov to the field of chemical lasers. In 1970 under his guidance an original chemical laser was achieved which operates on a mixture of deuterium, F and CO₂ at the atmospheric pressure.

In the end of 1970 N.G. Basov (together with E.P. Markin, A.N. Oraevsky, A.V. Pankratov) presented experimental evidence for the stimulation of chemical reactions by the infrared laser radiation.