Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov (Russian:Николай Геннадиевич Басов) (December 14, 1922 – July 1, 2001) was a Soviet/Russian physicist and educator. He was born in the town Usman , now in Lipetsk Oblast. For his fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics that lead to the development of laser and maser, Basov shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with Aleksandr Prokhorov and Charles Hard Townes.

Basov graduated from (1950), and then held a professor position in the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, worked in the Lebedev Physical Institute, where he defended a dissertation for the Candidates of Sciences degree (it is equivalent to PhD) in 1953 and a dissertation for the Doctor of Sciences degree in 1956. Later he became the Director of the Institute (in 1973-1988). In 1962 he becomes the Corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Full Member since 1966). In 1967 he was elected a Member of the Presidium of the Academy (1967—1990), since 1990 he was the councillor of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Russian Academy of Sciences since 1991). He was the head of the laboratory of quantum radiophysics at the Institute at the time of his death.

Awards and Honors

• Lenin Prize (1959)
• Nobel Prize in Physics (1964)
• Two times the Hero of Socialist Labor (1969, 1982)
• USSR State Prize (1989)
• Five Orders of Lenin

External link

• Detailed biography (in Russian)
• Biography from the Nobel Foundation.
• Biorgaphy from Encyclopedia Britannica.