Alexander Prokhorov
| Alexander Prokhorov | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Alexander Michael Prochoroff 11 July 1916 Atherton, Queensland, Australia |
| Died | 8 January 2002 (aged 85) Moscow, Russia |
| Nationality | Soviet / Russian |
| Fields | Physics |
| Known for | Lasers and masers |
| Notable awards | 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics 1987 Lomonosov Gold Medal |
Alexander Mikhailovich Prokhorov (born Alexander Michael Prochoroff, Russian: Алекса́ндр Миха́йлович Про́хоров; 11 July 1916 – 8 January 2002) was a Soviet physicist known for his pioneering research on lasers and masers for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 with Charles Hard Townes and Nikolay Basov.
Prokhorov (Alexander Michael Prochoroff on birth certificate) was born in 1916 at Russell Rd Peeramon, Queensland, Australia (now 322 Gadaloff Rd Butchers Creek) (situated about 30 km from Atherton, Queensland), to Michael Jant and Mary Prochoroff, Russian revolutionaries who had emigrated from Russia to escape repression by the tsarist government. As a child he attended Butchers Creek School. In 1923, after the October Revolution, the family returned to Russia. In 1934, Prokhorov entered the Saint Petersburg State University to study physics. He graduated with honors in 1939 and moved to Moscow to work at the Lebedev Physical Institute, in the oscillations laboratory headed by academician N. D. Papaleksi. His research there was devoted to propagation of radio waves in the ionosphere. At the onset of World War II in the Soviet Union, in June 1941, he joined the Red Army. During World War II, Prokhorov fought in the infantry, was wounded twice in battles, and was awarded three medals, including the Medal For Courage in 1946. He was demobilized in 1944 and returned to the Lebedev Institute where, in 1946, he defended his Ph.D. thesis on "Theory of Stabilization of Frequency of a Tube Oscillator in the Theory of a Small Parameter".
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