Gurgen Askaryan

Gurgen Ashotovich Askaryan (Armenian: Գուրգեն Ասկարյան; Russian: Гурген Аскарьян or Гурген Аскарян) (14 December 1928 – 2 March 1997) was a prominent Soviet - Armenian physicist, famous for his discovery of the self-focusing of light, pioneering studies of light-matter interactions, and the discovery and investigation of the interaction of high-energy particles with condensed matter. (See Askaryan effect)