Alexander Prokhorov
Australian-born Soviet physicist (1916–2002)
Who was Alexander Prokhorov?
Alexander Mikhailovich Prokhorov (born Alexander Michael Prochoroff; Russian: Александр Михайлович Прохоров; 11 July 1916 – 8 January 2002) was an Australian-born Soviet physicist and researcher whose work focused on quantum electronics. Alexander Michael Prochoroff was born on 11 July 1916 in Atherton, Australia, to Russian parents who had emigrated from Russia to escape repression by the Tsarist regime. As a child, he attended Butchers Creek State School. The family returned to Russia in 1923, after the culmination of the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War. In 1934, Prokhorov entered the Saint Petersburg State University to study physics. His most famous and well-known works were on optics and electromagnetic research. He was a member of the Komsomol from 1930 to 1944, the youth wing of the CPSU.
Prokhorov 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.
Historical significance
He was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 with Charles Hard Townes and Nikolay Basov for his fundamental work that led to the development of the laser and the maser.
