204/331 ë MB ë 12/ii-03 ë SVERKA ë 17 ÒÑÎÑÔ ÍÑÏÒ. å 3 Quantum Electronics 32 (12) 1048 ë 1064 (2002) ß2002 Kvantovaya Elektronika and Turpion Ltd

PACS numbers:42.62.^b; 42.79.Qx; 89.20.Dd DOI:10.1070/QE2002v032n12ABEH002348 Academician Basov, high-power and the antimissile defence problem

P.V. Zarubin

Abstract. A review of the extensive programme of the pionee- would be appropriate to recall the words of M.V. Lomo- ring research and development of high-power lasers and nosov: `Science is all the more astonishing because of its radar undertaken in the USSR during the years 1964 ë1978 subtlety in spite of simplicity, and a small number of under the scientiéc supervision of N.G. Basov is presented. In reasons can lead to countless manners of properties, the course of this program, many high-energy lasers with changes and phenomena' [1]. This profound thought is unique properties were created, new big research and design aptly illustrated by the `burst' in laser research in the érst teams were formed, and the laser production and testing half of 1960s. Thousands of scientists in the biggest facilities were extended and developed. The programme was laboratories of the USA, the USSR, Europe, Japan and fulélled at many leading research institutions and design China embarked on the projects aimed at creating lasers. bureaus of the USSR Academy of Sciences and defence The temptation offered by the basic idea of amplifying the industry. stimulated emission of a large number of particles, atoms and molecules in an optical resonator turned out to be Keywords: high-power lasers, laser radars, antimissile defence. profound. The Lebedev Physics Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences (FIAN) became the leading research 1. Antimissile defence and lasers. Basic aspects centre in the USSR for pioneering studies on quantum of interest in the problem oscillators, including lasers. Scientists at the FIAN, especially those working under the supervision of In the early 1960s, when the idea of a laser generating a A.M. Prokhorov and N.G. Basov, directed their efforts narrow high-power coherent light beam began to be in the early 1960s at increasing the energy and power of implemented in the `hardware' of engineering solutions, it laser radiation, and also at the quest for new types of lasers. became actually possible to create quantum optical gene- An atmosphere of optimism and conédence about the rators with a high output power and a high radiation possibility of attaining high energy characteristics of lasers energy (the English acronym LASER was not yet accepted prevailed at the institute. in the USSR at that time). Radio-frequency quantum After the creation of the érst laser by Maiman at the generators (masers), the immediate predecessors of lasers, Hughes laboratory on 15 May 1960, many scientists and were created in the mid-1950s almost simultaneously and military ofécers in the USA (and shortly afterwards in the independently by the American and Soviet scientists USSR) started considering the possibility of creating (Ch. Townes, J. Gordon and H. Zeiger in the USA and weapons capable of destroying targets by `incinerating' N.G. Basov and A.M. Prokhorov in the USSR). Charles laser rays. Naturally, the érst laboratory lasers were not Townes, Aleksandr Prokhorov and Nikolai Basov were so powerful and did not possess sufécient radiation energy awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1964 for their to meet such demands. The understanding of many scientiéc fundamental studies in the éeld of quantum electronics and and technical problems associated with the production of masers. The idea of generation of radiation in the optical such a weapon came later. However, it was not long (just a range, based on the experimental and theoretical works on few years) before the researchers obtained outstanding masers, was proposed in 1958 by Ch. Townes and results on improvement of lasers and enhancement of their A. Shawlow (