Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov

Russian physicist

• Born: December 14, 1922
• Birthplace: Usman, Soviet Union
• Died: July 1, 2001
• Place of death: Moscow, Russia

Basov played a key role in the invention of quantum microwave amplification devices (masers) and light amplifiers that operate on the principle of stimulated emission of radiation (lasers). He collaborated with Aleksandr Prokhorov, with whom he shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics, to produce the first Soviet maser and did pioneering work on the use of semiconductors in lasers.

Early Life

Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov (NEE-koh-li gehn-nah-DEE-yeh-veech BAH-sohf) was the son of Gennadiy Fedorovich Basov, a professor, and Zinaida Adreevna Basova. Russian biographical sources, which are typically reticent about the personal lives of public figures, state only that he attended primary and secondary school in Voronezh. Completing secondary school in the early days of World War II, he enlisted in the army, enrolled in the Kiev school of military medicine, and afterward served as a lieutenant in the medical corps on the Ukrainian front.

Following the war, he enrolled in the Moscow Institute of Mechanics, from which he received Kandidat Nauka (roughly equivalent to an American doctoral degree) in 1950, only five years after beginning undergraduate study. Such rapid progress on the educational ladder was not unusual at the time. Soviet science was in the process of extremely rapid expansion in response to the demands of postwar reconstruction and an effort to achieve scientific and technological parity with the West, now perceived as a threat as Cold War tensions deepened. Thinning of the ranks of older scientists by the purges of the 1930’s, wartime mortality, and the diversion of scientific effort toward immediate military concerns left the Soviet Union with an acute shortage of trained scientists. Consequently, there was great pressure to rush people through the educational system and to put them to work as soon as possible. Although the educational climate of postwar Russia has been much criticized for producing mediocrity, it did enable gifted individuals to exercise their abilities at an early age.

In 1948, while still a student, Basov joined the staff of the oscillation laboratory of the Lebedev Physics Institute in Moscow, first as a laboratory technician and later as a senior scientist. It was there that he began the fruitful collaboration with Aleksandr Prokhorov that led to their receiving the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for research on masers and lasers. He married Kseniya Tikhonova Nazarova in 1950, and together they had two sons, Gennadiy and Dmitri.

Life’s Work

Basov’s name is inextricably linked with laser research in the Soviet Union. Quantum amplification devices (masers and lasers) have been the focus of nearly all of his scientific endeavors during a long and fruitful career that began in the late 1940’s with investigations on the use of microwave absorption spectra to study the structure of molecules. Absorption spectra are produced when electromagnetic radiation interacts with a substance in a low (ground) energy state. The substance absorbs certain frequencies of energy, becomes excited, and the pattern of frequencies absorbed gives important clues about the structure of the substance. To improve the sensitivity of their instruments, Basov and Prokhorov turned their efforts toward building a device, which they termed a molecular beam generator, that would produce a population of molecules all in the ground state. The design also produced a population of molecules in the excited state that could be used to amplify selected wavelengths by stimulated emission, a result that was to have far-reaching implications. A theoretical paper outlining such a device appeared in Zhurnal eksperimentalnogo i teoreticheskogo fiziki (journal of experimental and theoretical physics) in 1954. In the following year, Basov demonstrated the first Soviet maser (as microwave quantum amplifiers were dubbed by American workers). He received his Russian doctorate (a more advanced degree than the American doctorate) for this work in 1956.

This Russian maser research paralleled work being done by Charles Hard Townes and others in the United States but was completely independent of it, a fact that has been well documented and was recognized by the Nobel Committee. Scientists in the Soviet Union in the 1940’s and early 1950’s were effectively isolated from their Western counterparts. Much of the research on masers came under the heading of classified information on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and the Soviets in particular regarded even routine requests for scientific information from the West as subversive. Informal exchanges at scientific meetings, an important medium of exchange between scientists, did not occur, because Soviet scientists did not travel to the West.

After the discovery of masers, Basov turned toward devising a system based on the principle of stimulated emission of visible light. The maser demonstrated that this was theoretically possible, but there were practical difficulties in producing a population of predominantly excited molecules in the optical range. The story of the invention of the laser is one of a race between several Americans, working semi-independently of one another, and the entirely separate Russian group at the Lebedev Physics Institute. The distinction of producing the first working laser belongs to an American, but the Russians were not far behind and were noteworthy in their pioneering work with semiconductor lasers. In the following years, Basov, Prokhorov, and numerous coworkers and subordinates conducted investigations into the design of a semiconductor, gas and chemical lasers, the use of lasers in controlled thermonuclear reactions, and a wide variety of practical applications of lasers in science and technology. An extensive bibliography of scientific publications from the 1970’s and 1980’s is testimony both to Basov’s continuing activity in the field and to his prestige and influence as an academician and Nobel laureate.

In 1959, Basov and Prokhorov were awarded the Lenin Prize, the highest honor for individual achievement in the Soviet Union, for their work with masers and lasers, and in 1964 they shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Townes, the leading American laser researcher. In 1966, Basov was elected full member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and in 1967 was elected a member of its Presidium. The Academy of Sciences was the most prestigious scientific body in the Soviet Union, and membership in it carries with it both personal financial rewards and substantial political influence in matters such as funding of laboratories. Basov was active in establishing and advising laser research laboratories throughout the Soviet Union and abroad.

Politically as well as scientifically active and ambitious, Basov joined the Communist Party in 1951 and became a deputy to the Supreme Soviet in 1974 and a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in 1982. Such active involvement in party politics was unusual for a distinguished scientist in the Soviet Union.

Significance

In his 1964 Nobel Prize lecture, Basov characterized himself as a scientist who combined the theoretical elucidation of physical principles with their practical applications, with emphasis on the practical. This is a reasonable description of his scientific approach, but more than that it is an affirmation of his orthodoxy and adherence to the Marxist philosophy of science, which emphasizes the concrete and service aspects of science over the theoretical sometimes to the detriment of both, particularly when the decisions as to what is practical and what is mere “bourgeois theory” are made by those ignorant of scientific methodology.

The elaboration of the theory of stimulated emission of radiation (which had been predicted by Albert Einstein on a general basis in 1917) and the development of experimental quantum amplifiers were major developments in theoretical physics; the laser itself has, in the years since its invention, become one of the most important tools of science and industry.

A brilliant and productive scientist who devoted his career to a branch of physics with broad practical applications, Basov was patriotic, politically orthodox, politically adept, and close to being a model Soviet/Marxist scientist. Although the model may not be as appealing to Westerners as that of dissident scientists, it is an effective one, and Basov’s scientific and administrative efforts on behalf of laser research made this branch of physics one of the showpieces of Soviet science.

Bibliography

Bertolotti, Mario. The History of the Laser. Bristol, England: Institute of Physics, 2005. Traces the history of the laser and those responsible for its discovery. Although Basov is not a principle character in the book, his work is mentioned and is placed within the context of other scientific developments.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Masers and Lasers: An Historical Approach. Bristol, England: Adam Hilger, 1983. A technical account of the reasoning behind the development of the maser and laser. The narrative is likely to be difficult for nonspecialists. The contributions made by Prokhorov and Basov are discussed in some detail and placed in the context of research that was underway at the same time in the United States.

Brophy, James J. Semiconductor Devices. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. A useful background reference for understanding how semiconductor lasers function. Terminology is defined and explained in nonmathematical terms; the book is aimed at the nonspecialist using semiconductor devices who wants a basic understanding of how they function. There is a brief discussion of semiconductor lasers themselves.

Dardo, Mauro. Nobel Laureates and Twentieth-Century Physics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Chronicles major developments in physics since 1901, the year the first Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded. Includes information about the work of Basov and other prize winners.

Hecht, Jeff, and Dick Teresi. Laser: Supertool of the Eighties. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1982. The bulk of this book (nine of fourteen chapters) is devoted to uses and potential uses of lasers in medicine, communications, warfare, manufacturing, energy production, publishing, holography, and the arts. There are good nontechnical descriptions of the general principle of laser action and the design and function of various masers and lasers. The section devoted to the history of the laser concentrates on the American contribution but does include some information on Basov and Prokhorov.

Isakov, A. I., O. N. Krokhin, D. V. Sobeltsyn, and I. I. Sobelman. “Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov, on His Fiftieth Birthday.” Soviet Physics-Uspekhi 16, no. 1 (1973): 165-166. This testimonial, written by a number of fellow physicists, gives a chronological account of Basov’s life and research. Tends to present a one-sided view of the person portrayed. Provides a good review of Basov’s scientific career but contains little personal data. The Soviet view of individual effort as a part of a master plan is also evident.

Parry, Albert. The Russian Scientist. New York: Macmillan, 1973. This book is a good, relatively neutral account of science in the Soviet Union, beginning in czarist times. Biographies of representative eminent Russian physical and natural scientists and mathematicians are given. A useful reference for a perspective on science administration in the Soviet Union and the importance of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

Popovsky, Mark. Manipulated Science: The Crisis of Science and Scientists in the Soviet Union Today. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979. A Russian specialist in scientific journalism who emigrated to the United States, Popovsky presents a historical overview of the practice of science in the Soviet Union. The emphasis is on failures and weaknesses of the system and the dismal record of natural sciences under Joseph Stalin.

Weber, Robert L. Pioneers of Science: Nobel Prize Winners in Physics. Edited by J. M. A. Lenihan. Bristol, England: Adam Hilger, 1980. Consists of brief sketches of the lives of Nobel Prize-winning physicists to 1980. Its chief use is as a source of biographical data, and it includes personal data on Soviet scientists that Soviet sources do not include.