Alexander Prokhorov

Aleksandr Prokhorov (1916–2002) was a Soviet and Russian physicist, university teacher, and editor. He worked in the fields of physics, quantum electronics, lasers, and masers. Prokhorov served as a full professor and was employed by the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, and the Lebedev Physical Institute. He was educated at the Lebedev Physical Institute and Saint Petersburg State University, where his doctoral advisor was Sergei Rytov.

Prokhorov was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and participated in World War II. He held memberships in the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. His doctoral students included Nikolay Basov and Evgeny Velikhov. He received the USSR State Prize, the Order of Lenin, the Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945", and the title of Hero of Socialist Labour. Prokhorov was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics and is recognized in the Nobel Physics collection. He is buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery.