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Russian physicist Aleksandr Prokhorov won the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics. He was awarded the prize for his basic research into experimental physics, which led to the invention of the maser and the laser.

Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov (1916-2002), Australian-born Soviet physicist and Nobel laureate. Prokhorov helped to develop both the laser and the maser, for which he shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics with Soviet physicist Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov and American physicist Charles Hard Townes.

Prokhorov was born in Atherton, Australia, where his family had fled from Russia in 1911. The family returned to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1923, and Prokhorov graduated from Leningrad University with a B.S. degree in physics in 1939. Shortly thereafter, World War II (1939-1945) interrupted Prokhorov's career. He served in the Soviet Army from 1941 to 1944 and in 1948 obtained his Ph.D. degree in physics at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Two years later, he joined the research staff at the Lebedev Institute of Physics at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow.

Prokhorov, together with Basov, conducted groundbreaking research in quantum mechanics (see Quantum Theory), which concerns the behavior of atoms at different energy levels. They first deduced that manipulating quantum energies might permit them to amplify microwaves and light waves (see Electromagnetic Radiation). They then constructed the theoretical basis of a process now called microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, or maser. The maser quickly found many applications for its ability to send strong microwaves in any direction and resulted in improvements in radar. The maser also provided the basis for an atomic clock (see Clocks and Watches) that was far more accurate than any mechanical timepiece ever invented.

Prokhorov later helped develop the visible-light maser, or laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), which delivers infrared or visible light instead of microwaves. Both the maser and laser can collect and amplify energy waves hundreds of times. They can also produce a beam with almost perfectly parallel light waves and little or no interference or static. Later in his career, Prokhorov further investigated the interactions of laser radiation with matter.