On the 80th birthday of V.S. Letokhov

Troitsk near Moscow occupies a special place among the cities associated with laser physics, photonics and their applications. It is here that the Institute of Spectroscopy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) is located, in which outstanding Soviet and Russian scientist Vladilen Stepanovich Letokhov worked. In honour of the 80th anniversary of his birth, the International Symposium on Laser Spectroscopy, organised with the support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, was held at the Institute of Spectroscopy on November 11–12, 2019. The program of the Symposium covered the most relevant areas of laser spectroscopy of atoms, ions, molecules, clusters, condensed matter, optics and spectroscopy of single nanoobjects and nanostructures, as well as the development and application of new spectral methods and optical instruments for solving fundamental and applied problems.