Basov, Nikolai Gennadievich, << BAH suhf, nee kaw LY geh neh DEE yuh vihch >> (1922-2001), was a noted Russian physicist. In 1953, he and Russian physicist Alexander Prokhorov stated principles for using the energy of molecules to amplify microwaves. Basov and Prokhorov developed these amplifiers, which are called masers, during the next two years (see Maser ). For their work, Basov and Prokhorov shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics with the American physicist Charles H. Townes.
Basov was born on Dec. 14, 1922, in Uzman, near Voronezh, and graduated from the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute in 1950. In 1948, he became a laboratory assistant at the Lebedev Institute of Physics in Moscow. There, he held various positions, including the post of director from 1973 to 1989. He died on July 1, 2001.
