Nobel-winning physicist who laid the foundations of the maser and laser, then extended quantum electronics into missile defense
In 1985, responding to the US SDI program, Basov declared publicly that the Soviet Union was capable of matching any technology proposed. In the late Cold War technology race, the Nobel laureate's words were not merely a scientific opinion but an element of national strategy.
A Soviet radiophysicist and one of the founders of quantum electronics. In 1952, together with Alexander Prokhorov, he established the principle of amplifying and generating electromagnetic radiation with quantum systems, and in 1954 they built the first maser using an ammonia molecular beam. He went on to design the three-level laser, semiconductor lasers, and high-power gas and chemical lasers, and was the first to propose using lasers for controlled thermonuclear fusion. For this body of work he shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with Prokhorov and Charles Townes. As Director of the Lebedev Physical Institute from 1973 to 1988, he led the institutional center of Soviet laser physics; his research fed directly into Soviet missile defense programs. In 1985 he publicly declared that the USSR was capable of matching the technology proposed by the US Strategic Defense Initiative.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1941Drafted into Red Army, entered Kuibyshev Military Medical Academy
- 1943–1945Served as military doctor's assistant on the 1st Ukrainian Front
- 1945–1950Entered and graduated from Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI)
- 1950–1953Postgraduate at Lebedev Physical Institute (FIAN); Candidate of Sciences degree
- 1956Doctor of Sciences with thesis 'A Molecular Oscillator'
- 1958–1972Deputy Director of the Lebedev Physical Institute
- 1959Awarded the Lenin Prize together with Prokhorov
- 1962Elected Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1963Founded and headed the Laboratory of Quantum Radiophysics at FIAN
- 1964Nobel Prize in Physics (jointly with Prokhorov and Townes)
- 1966Elected Full Member (Academician) of the USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1967–1990Member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1969First Hero of Socialist Labor title
- 1973–1988Director of the Lebedev Physical Institute
- 1974Deputy of the Soviet of the Union, USSR Supreme Soviet (9th–11th convocations)
- 1982Second Hero of Socialist Labor title
- 1989Awarded the USSR State Prize
Related historical events
Signing the 1973 Letter Condemning Sakharov and His Standing in Soviet Science
Basov's scientific career was tightly interwoven with the Soviet state apparatus. He became a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1966 and sat on its Presidium from 1967 to 1990, while serving three successive terms as a deputy of the Soviet of the Union in the USSR Supreme Soviet from 1974. He founded the Laboratory of Quantum Radiophysics at the Lebedev Physical Institute in 1963 and headed it until his death, and directed the institute itself from 1973 to 1988 (or 1989), giving him command of the institutional center of Soviet laser physics. In 1978 he established the Department of Quantum Electronics at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute and became its first head, and from 1978 to 1990 he chaired the board of Znanie, the all-Union public enlightenment society.
That standing came with the price of political loyalty. In 1973 Basov was among the Academy members who signed a letter to Pravda. The letter accused Sakharov of having "made a series of statements defaming the state system and the foreign and domestic policy of the Soviet Union," and characterized his human rights activity as "defaming the honor and dignity of the Soviet scientist." At the time, the signature of a Nobel laureate and head of a major institute functioned within Soviet science not as a private opinion but as part of institutional pressure.
It would be too simple, however, to reduce him to an instrument of state coercion. His research illustrates the character of a system in which civilian basic science and military technology were not separated. Work on laser fusion and high-power lasers served energy and defense goals at once, and as institute director he was the link binding that research to state budgets and military demand. His 1985 public declaration that the USSR could match the technology of the US Strategic Defense Initiative shows a man who was at once a scientist and a political spokesman for the Cold War technology race.