Nobel-winning laser co-inventor who helmed the Great Soviet Encyclopedia for three decades
When Prokhorov decided to switch his lab from microwave technology to lasers, he personally smashed the old equipment — half the staff quit in outrage, but the remaining team went on to win the Nobel Prize.
Australian-born Soviet physicist who co-invented the maser-laser principle with Nikolay Basov, sharing the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with Basov and Charles Townes. A Red Army infantryman wounded twice in WWII, he returned to the Lebedev Physical Institute and pioneered open-resonator laser design and gas-dynamic lasers. As director of the General Physics Institute (1982–1998), he oversaw research spanning fibre optics, laser fusion, and space communications, while serving over three decades as chief editor of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, placing a major working scientist at the helm of the USSR's flagship reference work. Twice Hero of Socialist Labour and recipient of five Orders of Lenin, he trained a generation of Soviet physicists including Zhores Alferov.
Career Timeline
- 1939Graduated with honors, Leningrad State University physics; joined Lebedev Physical Institute
- 1941–1944Red Army infantry, wounded twice
- 1954Head of Oscillation Laboratory, Lebedev Physical Institute
- 1959Lenin Prize; professor at Moscow State University
- 1964Nobel Prize in Physics shared with Basov and Townes
- 1966Academician, USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1969–2001Chief editor, Great Soviet Encyclopedia
- 1982–1998Director, General Physics Institute, USSR/Russian Academy of Sciences