Letters to the Editor

On a Molecular Generator Without the Use of a Molecular Beam

In the article by N. G. Basov and A. M. Prokhorov, published in UFN LVII, 485 (1955), two methods were proposed for sorting gas molecules in order to create a molecular generator using a sufficiently rarefied gas instead of a molecular beam. However, as more detailed calculations have shown, sorting gas molecules by means of static electric (or magnetic) fields cannot be carried out. Therefore such a generator can be realized only by the second method, in which the sorting of molecules is performed by an auxiliary high-frequency field.

N. G. Basov, B. D. Osipov, and A. M. Prokhorov