Alexander V. Kolobov entered this amorphous field in 1977 when he joined Professor Boris T. Kolomiets' laboratory at the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute, Leningrad. Since 1994 he has additionally been a senior research scientist at the Joint Research Center for Atom Technology at the National Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research, Tsukuba (Japan). In 2001 his position moved to the laboratory for Advanced Optical Technology at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba (Japan).