The Contribution Of Alexander Prokhorov: Masers And Lasers

Running head : Alexander Prokhorov

Alexander Prokhorov

Physics

Mr.Horst Baelz

Solatthika Roypromma

17/10/11

Alexander Prokhorov
Alexander Prokhorov and his discoveries have greatly impacted our lives. He discovered masers and lasers. What are maser and a laser? Maser is stands for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Laser stands for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. When he was inventing masers and lasers the environment around him was area that has been through a world wars 2 and he just joined the red army and he came out to continue his studying and discovering this he discovered this with a fellow. His invention has a really great impact on our lives now a day

At Lebedev Institute, Prokhorov studied the propagation of radio waves in ionosphere. But then he join the red army after that he goes back and start on with his research. In 1946, he defended his PhD thesis on ‘Theory of Stabilization of Frequency of a Tube Oscillator in the Theory of a Small Parameter’. The following year, he started working on coherent radiation emitted by electrons orbiting in a cyclic particle accelerator called synchrotron. He demonstrated that the emission is mostly concentrated in the microwave spectral range.“ Stimulated emission means that a light packet, a photon, coming in contact with an atom can cause an electron to descend to a lower energy level so that an additional photon with the same amount of energy is emitted. If electrons are elevated to higher energy levels with the help of heat or light, an avalanche-like effect occurs when they fall to lower levels” . In the 1950s Alexandra Prokhorov, Nicolay Basov, and Charles Townes contributed to putting this phenomenon into practical use in masers and lasers, which produce concentrated and coherent beams of microwaves and light,